Also, check out Jean Carnahan's "Words for Lusty Larry" on the Craig affair over at Huffington Post. Love her:
The next time you're in a public place and some politician peers into your eyes, broadens his stance, taps for your attention, and begins spouting "family values" rhetoric, run for the nearest exit.
Same sex wedding bells for one newly married couple in Iowa. TowleRoad has pictures of the happy and historic couple. But, of course, the fun has ended. The County Attorney, John Sarcone, freaked out so that's over for now:
Two men sealed the state's first legal same-sex marriage with a kiss Friday morning, less than 24 hours after a judge threw out Iowa's ban on gay marriage and about two hours before he put that ruling on hold.
It was a narrow window of opportunity.
Polk County Judge Robert Hanson temporarily cleared the way for same-sex couples across the state to apply for marriage licenses in the county when he ruled Thursday that Iowa's 1998 Defense of Marriage Act, which allowed marriage only between a man and a woman, violated the constitutional rights of due process and equal protection of six gay couples who had sued.
County attorney John Sarcone promised a quick appeal and asked Hanson to stay his ruling until that appeal was resolved.
Is this a political party or the left-over members of Heaven's Gate who weren't beamed up to Scotty (calm down Larry, that is only an expression)? I mean, are you kidding me? Really, are you kidding me?
Wow, I even learned some new things about the GOP this week. For example, it seems they have to be proficient at tapping to get any illicit action. If so, then they are the party of Fred Astaire.
I also learned that some hearty-whoring, a seemingly weekly-to-monthly engagement for David Vitter, is not treated like a potential bathroom boinking for a man who has apparently been crossing light sabers with other Y-chromes at Union Station for a quarter century now.
Moral, or lack thereof: Sex with anonymous women for pay: Good. Sex with anonymous men through hand signal: Bad--yet, much like with Mark Foley, only when discovered by the media.
Can Rep. Frank Wolf stop fighting the War On Porn? It may be the only thing saving the GOP from giving in and holding one big group orgy.
That what CNN says the Associated Press is reporting. Here's the word from AP via IdahoStatesman.com:
Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig will announce Saturday he will resign from the Senate amid a furor over his arrest and guilty plea in a police sex sting in an airport men’s room, Republican officials said Friday.
Craig's communications director Dan Whiting told the Idaho Statesman, "I won't say either way."
6:57 PM The article above has been UPDATED with these lines:
The Idaho Statesman independently confirmed the report.
Craig's office declined to confirm or deny a resignation.
Apparently, with Tony Snow and John Warner, there have already been too many high-profile GOP resignation announcements today. CNN just told me that Larry Craig will be announcing his plans tomorrow.
Sen. Larry Craig plans to make an announcement Saturday about his future.
"We haven't quite scheduled anything, but we're looking at doing something tomorrow," said Craig's spokesman Sid Smith. "We haven't set a time or place yet."
It's deplorable mendacity like this that reminds me it was the right decision to resign from the Department of Defense. There's literally nothing I can say or add to improve upon Ilan's commentary, so click through and check it out.
It's nice that Glenn makes it easy for me to go out of town (I'm in NYC visiting family). No need for additional keystrokes from me when you can read his column, Forcing Larry Craig's resignation while embracing David Vitter; it scorches the GOP and professional Beltway "Christians." A snippet:
The only kind of "morality" that this movement knows or embraces is politically exploitative, cost-free morality. That is why the national Republican Party rails endlessly against homosexuality and is virtually mute about divorce and adultery: because anti-gay moralism costs virtually all of its supporters nothing (since that is a moral prohibition that does not constrain them), while heterosexual moral deviations -- from divorce to adultery to sex outside of marriage -- are rampant among the Values Voters faithful and thus removed from the realm of condemnation. Hence we have scads of people sitting around opposing same-sex marriage because of their professed belief in "Traditional Marriage" while their "third husbands" and multiple step-children and live-in girlfriends sit next to them on the couch.
... It goes without saying that no gay candidate would stand a chance of receiving the presidential nomination from the party that stands for Traditional Marriage. And indeed, the Idaho Family Values Association (entitled to great respect), in the wake of the Craig scandal, just called -- explicitly -- for the Republican Party to purge all gay politicians from the party:
The Party, in the wake of the Mark Foley incident in particular, can no longer straddle the fence on the issue of homosexual behavior. Even setting Senator Craig's situation aside, the Party should regard participation in the self-destructive homosexual lifestyle as incompatible with public service on behalf of the GOP.
And don't forget, there was much said in the bible about adultery and divorce, a tome the Right frequently drags out to beat gays with. And what about the whole shebang about wearing mixed fibers and eating shellfish? Oh, yeah, that doesn't matter either with that crowd.
An open seat in Virginia. John Warner just announced he's retiring.
That smarmy, fake moderate Congressman Tom Davis has wanted this seat for a long time. The right wing conservatives in the GOP will fight him every step of the way. Bring on the GOP fratricide.
The Republicans already have a replacement picked for Larry Craig. They seem to think his resignation is just a matter of time:
Idaho Gov. Butch Otter already appears to have settled on a successor — Lt. Gov. Jim Risch — Republican officials in Idaho said today.
Risch served for seven months as governor last year after former Gov. Dirk Kempthorne was named Interior Secretary. Risch had said earlier he was interested in Craig’s Senate seat if Craig did not seek re-election in 2008.
Mitch McConnell also reports several of Craig's colleagues want him to resign:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell today called Craig’s conduct “unforgivable” and acknowledged that many in his caucus believe Craig should resign.
“We have acted promptly to begin the process of dealing with this conduct,” McConnell said. “We will see what happens in the coming days.”
The Republicans are getting might sanctimonious about Craig. Just wondering what David Vitter and Ted Stavens have to say? What about Lindsey Graham?
The GOP loves to release bad news late on the Friday of a long holiday weekend. What a coincidence.
Today is Karl Rove's last day in the Bush administration. Finally. CNN just reported that spinmeister Tony Snow's last day will be September 14th. Dana Perino is taking over as White House Press Secretary. She's a disaster.
The Bush administration has been in full campaign mode over the Iraq war since it started. They've put enormous time and resources into messaging the war, not so much into a strategy to extricate the U.S. from the quagmire. Over the past week, there have been several article demonstrating the public relations push the Bush team made with members of Congress visiting Iraq this summer:
On a Sunday morning in early August, just hours after Congress had recessed for the summer, Representative Jan Schakowsky and five of her colleagues boarded a military jet at Andrews Air Force Base. Three flights and a Black Hawk helicopter ride later, they were lunching on asparagus soup and lobster tortellini at the home of Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker in Baghdad.
Somehow, lobster tortellini isn't the first thing I would expect in Baghdad. But, it's all part of the show.
Today, the Washington Post reports that soldiers meeting with members of Congress were giving cheat sheets described as "a thumbnail biography, distributed before each of the congressmen's meetings in Baghdad, which let meeting participants such as that soldier know where each of the lawmakers stands on the war." Let's face it. That's the kind of info needed to lobby members of Congress. One more time, the Bush administration was using troops for their own political purposes. The Post piece gave insight into just how contrived the visits are:
Brief, choreographed and carefully controlled, the codels (short for congressional delegations) often have showed only what the Pentagon and the Bush administration have wanted the lawmakers to see. At one point, as Moran, Tauscher and Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.) were heading to lunch in the fortified Green Zone, an American urgently tried to get their attention, apparently to voice concerns about the war effort, the participants said. Security whisked the man away before he could make his point.
Tauscher called it "the Green Zone fog."
"Spin City," Moran grumbled. "The Iraqis and the Americans were all singing from the same song sheet, and it was deliberately manipulated."
But even such tight control could not always filter out the bizarre world inside the barricades. At one point, the three were trying to discuss the state of Iraqi security forces with Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, but the large, flat-panel television set facing the official proved to be a distraction. Rubaie was watching children's cartoons.
When Moran asked him to turn it off, Rubaie protested with a laugh and said, "But this is my favorite television show," Moran recalled.
Porter confirmed the incident, although he tried to paint the scene in the best light, noting that at least they had electricity.
You can't make this stuff up, although the Bush administration makes stuff up about Iraq all the time.
In this morning's Washington Post, Michael Gerson, Bush's former speechwriter, breathlessly proclaims the surge a success, and that the debate about Iraq has changed:
During their summer vacation, Americans discovered that Gen. David Petraeus doesn't take one. And his energy and urgency have shifted the Iraq debate in some fundamental ways.
A few months ago, it was the received wisdom that Iraq was in the midst of a rapidly escalating civil war. That claim is no longer plausible.
While the level of violence is still unacceptably high, the surge has disrupted the cycle of escalation and proved that progress is possible. Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno's briefing this month was an antidote to pessimism. "Total attacks," he said, "are at their lowest levels since August of 2006." Some of the most violent and lawless regions of Iraq, such as Anbar and Diyala, have been stabilized with the cooperation of local Sunni leaders who have turned against al-Qaeda thuggery. Insurgents are being pushed out of population centers and then targeted in further operations. Sectarian murders in Baghdad have gone down by more than 50 percent in a few months, reaching their lowest levels since the Samarra mosque bombing. And new sectarian provocations -- such as the al-Qaeda bombings in Nineveh -- have not resulted in the usual spiral of revenge murders
You see, everything in Iraq is hunky-dory. We are on our way to winning. How could anybody doubt these optimistic asessments? Oh yeah, this report from yesterday:
Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.
The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq.
These bozos have no credibility left. How can we possibly believe anything they say?
Finally, presidential semi-wannabe, former Tennesee senator and Law & Order actor Fred Thompson has hailed the GOP clown car to pick him up. The man hailed by the Freeper set as the next Ronald Reagan is going to announce his bid via webcast next week.
"I believe that there are millions of Americans who know that our security and prosperity are at risk if we don't address the challenges of our time," Thompson said in a statement.
The formal announcement will come in a webcast on September 6, followed by a tour of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. A second leg will hit Florida and wind up at home in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, on September 15.
"We enter this campaign in a strong position," said campaign manager Bill Lacy. "Fred is consistently near the top in the polls, and conservatives across the country have put together the closest thing to a draft in recent presidential campaign history in an effort to bring about this day."
But Thompson's long-delayed formal entry had made some supporters anxious and sparked complaints he was violating Federal Election Commission laws by running a shadow campaign.
Update at 8:04 a.m.: CNN reporting that Larry Craig "is likely to step down." There are "highly sensitive" discussions taking place among GOP leaders. (Republicans should be used to these highly sensitive discussions about wayward GOPers). Dana Bash is hearing that Craig will resign "perhaps, perhaps as early as today."
No need to wait for the official report. Nope. Petraeus already has his talking points down:
The U.S. troop surge in Iraq has thrown al Qaeda off balance and led to a reduction in sectarian violence and bombings, the U.S. commander in Iraq was quoted on Friday by an Australian newspaper as saying.
"We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress and we believe al Qaeda is off balance at the very least," General David Petraeus told the Australian in an interview after briefing Australia's defense minister, Brendan Nelson, in Baghdad.
Petraeus and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker will testify before the U.S. Congress on either September 11 or 12.
Petraeus says the sectarian violence is down, but that doesn't mean it's true. Ilan Goldberg found some abnormalities when looking at the numbers from the Pentagon on sectarian violence:
I really have no idea why these numbers are so inconsistent, but it does lead me to call into question the violence numbers that are being reported by the Administration, when it touts progress. Clearly certain types of violence have been taken out and others have been added. What we need is some transparency. Congress needs to take a very careful look at the numbers that come before it in September
Congress should take a very careful look at everything anyone from the Bush team says about Iraq.
Okay, Jonathan Klein and CNN, make up your mind about New Orleans.
You sent Anderson Cooper to New Orleans to report live about the struggle to rebuild the city:
Good evening.
We don't care much for anniversaries on this program, solemn remembrances of stories long since past. But, tonight, we come to you from New Orleans to report on a story which is still very much unfolding.
Two years ago tonight, these streets were filling with water. Levees poorly built over decade on shifting sands failed. And, two years ago tonight, what was a natural disaster became very quickly a manmade one.
Now, two years later, the recovery of this city, this region, is under way. And it, too, is manmade. Two years ago tonight, governments failed. The people here have not. New Orleans is rising again.
You also had Soledad O'Brien (who never should have left the morning show, p.s.) do an hour long special on called "Children of the Storm."
But then, Mr. Klein, you have one of the stars of your network, Glenn Beck, completely trash New Orleans -- and say that the city should not be rebuilt.
Chris Achorn, who does yeoman's work bird-dogging Beck, reports that last night, while O'Brien and Cooper were doing their Katrina reports on one CNN network, the controversial host Glenn Beck was on CNN's Headline News saying don't rebuild New Orleans:
On the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Glenn Beck takes his distain and outright hatred for the city and people of New Orleans to another level. He just comes right out and says it, that we should not spend a single dime to rebuild New Orleans.
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, two years since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and everybody`s still talking about rebuilding. I say don`t spend one thin dime. I`ll explain why.
BECK: Hello, America. Do not adjust your set, the truth coming your way. Possibly for the first time on Katrina.
It was two years ago that Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans, and the gulf region. Thousands were left homeless, causing well over $150 billion in damages. And without question, Katrina is the worst national disaster in national history.
President Bush, Congress responded over $100 billion in aid to rebuild New Orleans. A lot of people, including me, think the president has blown it. Here`s the point tonight.
How much do I think should be spent rebuilding New Orleans? Zero. Nothing. Not a dime. And here`s how I got there.
So what is it, CNN? Do we believe Anderson and Soledad that your network cares about the people of New Orleans? Or is Glenn Beck the voice of CNN? More and more, it seems that the Beck's warped world-view is what Jonathan Klein wants his network to be.
Dana Bash, who is reporting from Idaho, just said she's hearing from sources in Idaho and DC that Craig will be quitting the Senate -- soon. One Idaho pol told her Craig should just "pull the plug." According to Bash:
...the expectation at this point is that they do think that Senator Craig will likely resign pretty soon. That is sort of the sense that people are getting.
Gonzales may be leaving, but his legacy of lying lives on. Bush's Attorney General is being investigated by the Inspector General at the Department of Justice. They're concerned about Alberto's "truthfulness." They should be:
Justice Department investigators are examining the truthfulness of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' testimony to Congress on the firings of federal prosecutors and domestic wiretapping.
The effort, disclosed in a letter released on Thursday, is a sign that political controversy over Gonzales' conduct will continue well beyond his resignation announced this week.
"The current attorney general is leaving, but these questions remain," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who sought the examination.
Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine said in a letter released by Leahy that concerns over the truthfulness of Gonzales' testimony to the committee on July 24 and other times would be covered as part of probes already under way.
KTVB Idaho has the audio recorded when he was being interrogated after the undercover officer busted him for lewd behavior in the Minneapolis Airport mens' room. He is -- no surprise -- quite belligerent during questioning. He does, btw, raise the issue of entrapment.
H/t Wordsmith.
UPDATE from Joe: Here's the AP article on the interview. Really, really not good for Craig. Expect a resignation soon:
The officer who arrested Sen. Larry Craig in a police undercover operation at an airport men's room accused the senator of lying to him during an interrogation afterward, according to an audiotape of the arrest.
On the tape, released Thursday by the Minneapolis Airport Police, the Idaho Republican senator, in turn, accuses the officer of soliciting him for sex.
"I'm not gay. I don't do these kinds of things," Craig told Sgt. Dave Karsnia minutes after the two men met in a men's room at the airport on June 11.
"You shouldn't be out to entrap people," Craig told the officer. "I don't want you to take me to jail."
Karsnia replied that Craig wouldn't be going to jail as long as he cooperates.
At one point during the interrogation, the officer told Craig: "You're not being truthful with me. I'm kind of disappointed in you, senator."
Jon Soltz from VoteVets has a must-read post over Huffington analyzing the three very recent news items about Iraq. Those include: 1) the GAO report "that finds, more or less, that Iraq is in chaos" and challenges the underpinnings of Bush's claims of success; 2) the McClatchy news article that indicates military leaders won't make a single recommendation about the war to Bush; and 3) the shocking revelation that the Secretary of Defense was not told about the additional request for $50 billion in Iraq spending. Yes, Gates didn't e
