Lest anyone think Senator Ted Stevens‘ hold on the Coburn transparency bill was for any other reason than retribution for Tom Coburn’s Bridge to Nowhere amendment, there is this quote.

When the Senate was debating Coburn’s amendment to defund the Bridge to Nowhere on October 20 Stevens took the floor “to warn the Senate” against supporting Coburn’s measure. “I don’t threaten people,” said Stevens. “I promise people.”

Well, Stevens did keep his promise.

I cannot agree with these sentiments more:

Ex-U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday that the thought of California Rep. Nancy Pelosi becoming the next leader of the House and being third in line to the presidency is frightening.

“The prospect of her bringing San Francisco values and a whole attitude on foreign policy that is, I think, an attitude of weakness and appeasement and surrender, I think, would be a disaster for the country,” the outspoken Republican said.

KnoxNews Blog has an idea for turning secret holds into a good thing:

I’m not up to date on all the hooey that governs senate rules but here’s an idea: Get off our collective butts and elect one Libertarian senator to the senate. Have him place secret holds on all legislation. We’ll call him Mr. No. He’ll put holds on everything. Stop passing stupid laws. Stop growing the government at a rate that is faster than the economy. Stop the growth of the bureaucracy.

We already had that, we called him Jesse Helms…

These days we have guys like Jeff Sessions to do that…but I am all for more of it.
H/T Instapundit

Dems are unwilling to call a spade a spade.

I missed this yesterday…from a White House press release:

President George W. Bush today announced his intention to nominate the following five individuals:

Terrence W. Boyle, of North Carolina, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit William James Haynes II, of Virginia, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit William Gerry Myers III, of Idaho, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit Norman Randy Smith, of Idaho, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit Michael Brunson Wallace, of Mississippi, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Fifth Circuit

UPDATE: From the Washington Post:

NASHVILLE, Aug. 30 — Bucking opposition in the Senate, President Bush on Wednesday nominated five people for the U.S. Court of Appeals, including one whom Democrats have threatened to block with a filibuster.

News that Bush had decided to nominate the conservative jurists came before Bush spoke at a fundraiser for Bob Corker, who faces a tough Senate race against Democratic nominee Harold Ford Jr.

Yesterday Ted Stevens was outed as the holder of a Senate transparency bill. Today it is looking increasingly likely that he had a cohort…from the other side of the aisle.

Of course, if I am a betting man, I would surmise that this Democrat, like Stevens, is an appropriator. In that case, this isn’t really bipartisan holding because everyone knows where appropiators first loyalties lie.

UPDATE: An appropriator indeed…Erick at Red State says it is Robert Byrd.

HAHAHA…you know what this means don’t you? It’s time for a coot off!

No really…they are, and it makes me proud.

UPDATE: This, however, does not make me proud…

TPMmuckraker says Ted Stevens is the Senator holding the Coburn-Obama blogosphere-championed transparency bill.

UPDATE: Confirmed. Where to now Porkbusters?

UPDATE: Cox newspapers puts the MSM stamp of approval on this story.

The Bulll Moose Blog comments on the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran and the evil that would surely ensue…

National Review’s Kate O’Beirne comments on the Porkbusters effort and on the importance of the secret hold for conservatives (my emphasis added):

The blogosphere has crossed the partisan divide by uniting in the effort to unmask the senator who has a “secret hold” on the Coburn/Obama bill that would create a searchable database of pork projects. A deluge of calls to Senate offices has yielded scores of denials while bloggers speculate about who the culprit might be. The cyberspace campaign has meant terrific publicity for the popular measure. The “Parlor Game Publicity” thrills the bill’s Senate supporters. In fact, “secret holds” aren’t all that secret, within 72 hours the Senate leader reveals who the senator is to the bill’s sponsor. People in the know know who has this hold and expect it to be publicly known soon. And conservatives know how valuable these holds can be. Many senators have blocked many bad things by putting a hold on legislation — although this time it might be more personal animus than policy dispute.

Although, not all O’Beirne’s fellow cornerites are buying it.

Thanks for the link Kate!

UPDATE: Amanda Carpenter is not too thrilled about doing away with the holds process either:

When Wyden pushed an amendment to the lobbying reform bill to ban secret holds last March Sessions countered, “The issue is not about holds,” he said. “The rules say nothing about holds. Holds do not exist.”

Sessions is right. These secret holds are nothing more than a gentleman’s agreement between a senator and his party leader to delay legislation for reasons only made known to those two parties. If Frist or Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) were willing to give up the name this minute, they could.

Letting the blogosphere carry on with the fun charade of playing ‘whodunnit’ with the unnamed senator is comparable to adolescent siblings play fighting: sooner or later someone is going to get hurt.

If the game goes on, conservatives will likely be the ones walking out with a black eye. If indeed, it is a Republican senator who enacted the hold as the Redstaters and their allies fear, and Frist is proven to be his accomplice, all Republicans will be forfeiting an easy talking point to the DNC about stalling a bipartisan, commonsense bill to promote transparency in government…

…Second, if the game goes on too long, the calls to completely ban secret holds are sure to echo and multiply, supplying what Sessions called a “new advantage for those who want bigger and more expensive government.”

How? In his defense of holds Sessions explained a routine familiar to Hill staffers, but likely unknown to those outside the beltway, of waiting for, or ignoring the “hotline.”

As the hard-line conservative explained it, the real problem with the Senate is that bills are just passed too easily; often through a process called “hotlining.”

Porkbusters is doing some great work trying to expose the secret holder of a transparency in government bill. But with all the excitement over outing the holder, there appears to be momentum building to abolish the secret hold in general. On its face, that seems to make sense. But conservatives should rethink abolishing the secret hold.

More often than not it is conservatives — anti pork, limited government types — who employ the secret hold. They use the hold to slow down legislation that is incessantly offered by liberals in the Senate. Legislation that would appropriate x amount of billions of dollars to this or that socially acceptable and politically popular cause is often the target of these holds. Why? because without a hold the bill goes to the Senate floor and passes with unanimous consent for fear of opposing a politically popular piece of legislation that is often either not constitutional or further bloats the federal government. In this case, unamous consent is often anything but…it is more like unanimous ignorance.

Secret holds should not be employed at length and indefinitely, but they should be used to slow down bad legislation (and it seems as if 90 percent of what is being passed for as legislation these days qualifies as such). Furthermore, as Porkbusters is demonstrating, secret holds can and will be smoked out if the public outcry is strong enough.

I commend to you a floor speech by Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions in which he defends the practice. You can read it in the extended section.

UPDATE: I didn’t have time to write this earlier, but here are two more thoughts on this issue.

In many instances, secret holds increase transparency and the ability of the blogosphere specifically to shine light on the legislative process. When this fall in anticipation of the elections a liberal Senator offers legislation to fund a 2 million dollar new low income community center in his state, an anonymous hold can be placed on this legislation. The anonymous holder would place the hold because he knows that this is just an added expansion of the federal government and that it has no business passing the Senate because it is purely political in nature. The holder would do so anonymously because he most likely would not want to deal with the deluge of demagoguery that would come his way should his hold be public. In the meantime, the holder and his staff can use backchannels to inform the conservative bloggers and the porkbusting conservatives about the pending taxpayer ripoff. Hopefully, because the holder bought bloggers an extra couple of weeks this bill would fall on the merits. Transparency is now present where it would not have been had the bill been placed on the hotline sheet and passed by unanimous consent.

Speaking of the hotline sheet, this appears to be the bigger problem. Every evening that the Senate is in session offices get a phone call from the Senate cloakrooms. That phone call lists all the bills on the hotline sheet that are to be passed by unanimous consent every night. The Senator’s staff must in rapid fashion determine whether anything objectionable is on the sheet. If they do not object, everything passes unanimous consent — or secret consent. Read the rest of this entry »

In a statement released this morning, Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell lambasted Democrats for their campaign style bus tours through the Hurricane Katrina ravaged region this week:

“Democrat concerns about the government response to Katrina would be taken a lot more seriously if their comments weren’t wrapped in a political banner, or salted with campaign rhetoric.

“We can all agree that the response to Hurricane Katrina, at all levels of government, provided many lessons to guide the response to future disasters. My visit to the region reaffirmed that the ongoing recovery process is unprecedented in its scope and funding, and that the effort is far from over.

“But it’s important to remember that campaign-style bus tours, political rallies and attacks won’t build a single home or create real jobs in the Gulf Coast. Using the anniversary of this disaster as a platform for the 2006—or 2008—campaigns is unproductive.”

Jason DeParle has a must-read piece — Star of the right loses base at border — in today’s NY Times. In his story DeParle writes about RSC Chairman Mike Pence, his conservative bona fides and the potential for Pence to lose support amongst the conservative base because of his efforts to advance a compromise proposal on the immigration issue.

First, Pence’s undeniable conservative street cred:

“I’m a conservative, but I’m not mad about it,” he often says.

Arriving in Washington, he was dismayed at conservatives’ support for government expansion. In 2001, he was one of 34 Republicans to oppose the No Child Left Behind Act, which expanded federal involvement in education. In 2003, he was one of 25 who opposed the Medicare drug benefit. “I was voting against big conservative government before it was cool,” he said.

Congressional leaders hinted at reprisals, but the base applauded, especially after a 2004 speech in which he warned that the movement was drifting into “the dangerous and uncharted waters of big government.”

Among those won over was Paul Weyrich, a fixture of movement conservatism. He said Mr. Pence had strong appeal among supporters of four major conservative causes: limited government, free enterprise, strong defense and traditional values.

“Nobody is perfect, but he comes pretty close,” Mr. Weyrich said. “He is what I’ve been waiting for in terms of leadership.”

…His influence was apparent last fall after Hurricane Katrina, when Washington was suddenly filled with talk of new aid for the needy. Concerned about the cost, Mr. Pence’s group replied with Operation Offset, a plan to cut $500 billion over 10 years in programs that included Medicaid, tax credits for the poor, and care for people with AIDS.

It outraged the leadership, which accused him of showboating, and failed to pass. But it quickly changed the political dynamics, from starting programs to cutting them. Five months later, with Mr. Pence nearby, President Bush signed a bill that cut $39 billion over five years. “I think Operation Offset had something to do with that, though I would never boast of that,” Mr. Pence said.

Edwin J. Feulner Jr., president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington group, said Mr. Pence “has really been central to the revival of principled conservatism in the House.” Admirers have already begun a “Mike Pence for President” Web site.

Now, Pence’s — according to some on the right — unforgivable sin:

When Mr. Pence weighed in on immigration this spring, the issue, like much of the Republican agenda, was stalled and Republicans were deeply split. The House had passed a tough bill focusing on border security alone. The Senate had passed a broader measure that included a guest worker program and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here.

Mr. Pence tried to offer something to everyone. He included provisions to bolster the borders. After two years, if the government certified that those changes were in place, a guest worker program would begin. Those here unlawfully would have to leave the country and apply at job-placement centers. By requiring re-entry, Mr. Pence argues, the plan avoids amnesty and respects the rule of law. The guest worker visas could be renewed, with a chance of citizenship after 17 years.

The article goes on to note that Team America, a Bay Buchanan and Tom Tancredo operation dedicated to securing the borders and fixing the illegal immigration problem has furthered their hardball tactics against Pence by creating a “Pence Watch” on their website.

This is the same group who attacked Pence after he announced his proposal as a “former conservative hero.” That attack prompted some to challenge Tancredo on his my-way-or-the-highway approach to immigration reform.

I think I have been pretty clear regarding my thoughts on this issue. Bottom line: conservatives who would throw one of their most promising young up and coming leaders overboard because of a disagreement on this issue are shortsighted at best.

Stop the madness.

MORE:
The middle of the road may get a conservative run over

Compromise may hurt Pence

Colson backs Pence compromise

Details of Pence-Hutchison bill

Compromise plan in the editorials

John Hawkins, who has acknowledged he wouldn’t so much mind Giuliani’s name on the 2008 GOP ticket so long as it is below that of a conservative, lays out the conservative case against a President Giuliani.

I will be on Jamie Johnson’s KFFF show at 3:00 to discuss my NRO column comparing the 2006 PA Senate race between Rick Santorum and Bob Casey, Jr. to the 2002 Tim Hutchinson vs. Mark Pryor AR Senate contest.

Tune in here if interested…

Here is a little late August-doldrums fun…

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid was down in New Orleans this weekend looking to capitalize politically on the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The New York Times covered the story and ran this picture of Harry Reid politicking around the neighborhood.

Good picture, but it’s kind of funny that they left out the poor female staffer (you can find her if you click through the pic) who is charged with sheltering Reid from the sprinkles as he makes his rounds. The whole pic is below.

UPDATE: A reader notes a striking similarity…sort of…

Sebastion Mallably has a must read OpEd in today’s Washington Post. Mallaby explains that Democrats were not always anti-corporate. There was a time when things were different, and it was not that long ago:

To see the difference between then and now, just look at the Clintons. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hillary Clinton sat on Wal-Mart’s board; and when Sam Walton died in 1992, Bill Clinton lauded him as “a wonderful family man and one of the greatest citizens in the history of the state of Arkansas.'’ Campaigning in the New Hampshire primary that year, Bill Clinton came proudly to the rescue of a local company called American Brush Co. by helping it become a Wal-Mart supplier.

Times change. Last year Hillary Clinton returned a campaign contribution from Wal-Mart, even though she had no compunction in banking a check from Jerry Springer. The nation’s most successful retailer, which has seized the opportunities created by globalization to boost the buying power of ordinary Americans, is now seen as too toxic to touch. But a trash-talking TV host is acceptable.

The “Wake-up Walmart” crowd, explains Mallaby, is comprised mostly of political opportunists:

The truth is that none of these Democrats can resist dumb economic populism. Even though we are not in a recession, and even though the presidential primaries are more than a year away, the DLC crowd is pandering shamelessly to the left of the party — perhaps in the knowledge that the grocery workers union, which launched the anti-Wal-Mart campaign, is strong in the key state of Iowa.

For a party that needs the votes of Wal-Mart’s customers, this is a questionable strategy. But there is more than politics at stake. According to a paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research by Jerry Hausman and Ephraim Leibtag, neither of whom received funding from Wal-Mart, big-box stores led by Wal-Mart reduce families’ food bills by one-fourth. Because Wal-Mart’s price-cutting also has a big impact on the non-food stuff it peddles, it saves U.S. consumers upward of $200 billion a year, making it a larger booster of family welfare than the federal government’s $33 billion food-stamp program.

How can centrist Democrats respond to that? By beating up Wal-Mart and forcing it to focus on public relations rather than opening new stores, Democrats are harming the poor Americans they claim to speak for.

Of course, liberals seem to be masters of this strategy. It was decades and decades that liberals in Washington hurt low-income Americans by subjecting them to the outdated, unpersonal and no-incentive laden Aid to Families and Dependent Children welfare program which was supposed to help these people. It took some clear thinking conservatives to come along and fix the problem.

The Heritage Foundation’s Mike Franc gives readers a heads up on the upcoming fall congressional session:

When Congress returns from its August recess, the fireworks will come from three interrelated issues—counterterrorism, border and port security, and national security. Republicans, not coincidentally, enjoy a political advantage on all three and expect extensive media coverage of these high-profile issues to give them a much-needed political boost going into the November elections.

Though the fall session will be brief, congressional leaders hope to force votes on some or all of the following:

• One or more bills to clarify the legality of National Security Agency programs to monitor phone calls, financial transactions and other communications involving suspected terrorists and persons in the U.S.

• Legislation granting explicit approval for the military tribunals used to prosecute suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. (The Supreme Court ruled in its Hamdan decision that the current system lacks proper authorization from Congress.)

• A legislative enhancement of our port security that would establish more stringent security standards for ports and authorize an additional $5.5 billion for port security needs.

• Final approval of the annual spending bills for the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security.

• A second attempt to confirm John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

The Washington Times today runs a story about the Porkbusters effort to smoke out the secret holder of a Senate transparency and accountability bill:

Sponsored by Sens. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, and Barack Obama, Illinois Democrat, the bill would require the administration to create a searchable Web site that would list the name and amount of any federal grant, contract or other award of money amounting to $25,000 or more.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, tried to win speedy passage just before the Senate left for its summer break, but at least one senator objected anonymously.

Now Porkbusters.org, a Web site dedicated to exposing wasteful government spending, is conducting a public campaign to smoke out the obstructor or obstructors, while blogs on both sides of the political spectrum have weighed in, demanding action on the bill. Mr. Frist has also vowed to get into the act, promising to try to pass the bill again when Congress returns from its break next month.

“For reasons of policy and politics, many bloggers are rightly outraged that S. 2590 was shot down when I attempted to bring it up for a vote prior to the August recess,” Mr. Frist wrote in an entry last week on the blog of Volpac, his political action committee (www.volpac.com).

The Federal Times reported that one senator has a “secret hold” on the bill. Holds are an unofficial part of Senate parliamentary tradition that allow a single senator to delay action anonymously.

As has been the case for a long time now, the Democratic party is divided on the issue of withdrawal from Iraq. A recent Washington Post survey bears this out:

Of the 59 Democrats in hotly contested House and Senate races, a majority agree with the Bush administration that it would be unwise to set a specific schedule for troop withdrawal, and only a few are calling for substantial troop reductions to begin this year, according to a Washington Post survey of the campaigns.

But inside the beltway Democrats, especially in Congressional leadership are playing from a different playbook:

While Republicans have largely stood by Bush in opposing a timetable for troop withdrawal, congressional Democratic leaders this month coalesced around calls to begin drawing down troop levels by December, with no specified pace or completion date. But rank-and-file Democrats are far from unified.

It’s hard to fault Christopher Hitchens for his outburst yesterday on Bill Maher’s show. Here we have Hitchens explaining a deadly serious situation wherein Iranian President Ahmadinejad has for all intents and purposes made clear his desire to bring about a third world war when he is interrupted by Maher. While explaining the warped worldview of the maniacal Iranian who thinks the messiah is about to return Maher interjects, “so does George W. Bush, by the way.”

Then Maher’s acolytes of moral equivalence who warm the seats in his studio burst into doting applause.

Hitchens proceeds to correctly call the audience “frivolous” because they will clap at any senseless blather that seeps from their high priest Maher’s mouth, and then he loses it.

“F*&^ you, f%$ you,” says Hitchens as he gives the audience the middle finger.

Dealing with Bill Maher is frustrating enough, I suspect being subjected to the idiotic scorn of his legions of lemmings is downright maddening.

Watch the train reck unfold here.

• The junior senator from Judeo-Christian nation
• Agenda journalism
• Keystone Arkansas flashbacks
• Republicans can still win in the midterms
• The political value of blog ads
• Mr. Bush’s communication problem
• Case for transparent government is open and shut
• The Lebanese don’t think Hezbollah won
• McCain gobbles up more campaign talent
• CNN to rerun 9/11 coverage
• MSM transparency at its best

Robert Novak reports:

A political indicator of hard times ahead for Republicans is frantic activity during the current congressional recess by GOP staffers contemplating life under a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.

Several Republican aides, including many working for House members from safe seats, are seeking employment elsewhere. Most of them have never worked under Democratic control and dread the prospect of minority status on Capitol Hill.

Other aides, working on House committee staffs, would lose those jobs in a Democratic House and want to transfer now to work for safe Republican members.

Stephen Moore, writing for the WSJ Political Diary email, reports on a renewed round of scare mongering being used by Democrats for political advantage this fall:

The mid-term elections are three months away but Democratic attack dogs are already pounding Republican incumbents for harboring secret plans to destroy Social Security. “We’re getting hit hard and early on Social Security,” says a Senate leadership aide. “I’m worried this could lead to moderate Republicans renouncing their support for personal investment accounts.”

The issue has become a livewire in the key Senate battleground states of New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington. Bob Casey, the Democratic challenger in Pennsylvania, is lambasting incumbent Rick Santorum on the issue of Social Security cutbacks.

We’ve heard this record before from Democrats — a ploy that began in earnest back in 1982 when the Tip O’Neill Democrats tarred and feathered Reagan Republicans for trying to cut the cost-of-living increase in Grandma’s Social Security check. In every election since 1996, Democratic challengers have lobbed these political grenades at Republicans — but with not many casualties inflicted.

Moore suggests a counterpunch:

Republicans could flip the table on the Democrats on this politically sensitive issue by rallying behind a bill drafted by Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina. Mr. DeMint would take the annual Social Security surpluses (i.e. payroll taxes collected each year in excess of benefit payouts) and invest those dollars in young workers’ private accounts. Mr. DeMint calls this plan “Stop the Raid, Start the Accounts.” Polling indicates that what makes seniors and young workers angriest about Social Security is that $100 billion a year is stolen from the trust fund and spent on other programs. More than two-thirds of voters say they favor something like the DeMint plan to stop their payroll taxes from being diverted to unrelated federal pork. By squirreling these dollars into private accounts, the raid would immediately end.

Rather than running away from Social Security, Republicans could take the offensive on the issue and force Congress to cease and desist from one of the greatest raids on taxpayer funds in history. “We’ve got to be smart about this,” says Mr. DeMint. “Let Democrats explain why they want Social Security dollars spent on other government programs rather than retirement. This will let clarify for voters which party favors destroying the program.”

Google Talk, an increasingly popular instant messaging client that I have been using for the better part of a year now, celebrates its one year birthday yesterday. If you don’t use it, read about it’s birthday and download here.

David Keating describes what would be “an election night sight to behold.”

RSC CHairman Mike Pence posts an entry on his blog after touring the border with DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Pence concludes:

As I fly back to Dallas, I believe we have made progress in border security but our U.S. Border Patrol and DEA need help. They need people, technology and funding for barriers and equipment. And they need Congress to come up with a way that people can apply legally outside the United States to meet the needs of our grow ing economy. With the resources, the people, the tools and the ability to just focus on the bad guys, our law enforcement community can secure our border and protect our nation.

Moderate New England GOP’er Chris Shays is bucking the Administration by joining the John Kerry’s of the world in their call for a timetable for troop withdrawal of Iraq:

He said he found a “noticeable lack of political will” among Iraqis “to move in what I would call a timely fashion” and concluded that Iraqi officials would act with greater urgency if the United States this fall set a timetable for withdrawal.

“My view is that it may be that the only way we are able to encourage some political will on the part of Iraqis is to have a timeline for troop withdrawal,” Shays said from London in a conference call with reporters. “A timeline of when the bulk of heavy lifting is in the hands of the Iraqis.”

In 2002, Democrat Mark Pryor succeeded in defeating incumbent Republican Tim Hutchinson (my boss at the time) in the Arkansas Senate race. Pryor’s strategy in that race is eerily similar to the strategy being employed by Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey, Jr. against Rick Santorum this fall.

In a column over at National Review Online I examine the parallels and tell you why history may not repeat itself this year in Pennsylvania.

A new congressional report says that American intelligence agencies are downplaying the threat Iran poses to the international community and the United States.

The NY Times:

The new report, from the House Intelligence Committee, led by Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, portrayed Iran as a growing threat and criticized American spy agencies for cautious assessments about Iran’s weapons programs. “Intelligence community managers and analysts must provide their best analytical judgments about Iranian W.M.D. programs and not shy away from provocative conclusions or bury disagreements in consensus assessments,” the report said, using the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction like nuclear arms.

Some policy makers also said they were displeased that American spy agencies were playing down intelligence reports — including some from the Israeli government — of extensive contacts recently between Hezbollah and members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. “The people in the community are unwilling to make judgment calls and don’t know how to link anything together,” one senior United States official said.

The NY Times article suggests (of course) that the hesitation to draw provocative conclusions about Iran is directly linked to the controversy over faulty intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq. If intelligence agencies are too gun-shy with regard to Iran only because they want to avoid another controversy we could run the risk of serious calamity.

More:

The consensus of the intelligence agencies is that Iran is still years away from building a nuclear weapon. Such an assessment angers some in Washington, who say that it ignores the prospect that Iran could be aided by current nuclear powers like North Korea. “When the intelligence community says Iran is 5 to 10 years away from a nuclear weapon, I ask: ‘If North Korea were to ship them a nuke tomorrow, how close would they be then?” said Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives.

“The intelligence community is dedicated to predicting the least dangerous world possible,” he said.

Meanwhile, Iran continues to mock the international community even going so far as to hint at an upcoming nuclear surprise.

The Washington Post:

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will tour the Texas-Mexico border this morning with the conservative authors of a congressional immigration compromise, in what will be the clearest sign yet that the Bush administration is prepared to make major concessions to reach an immigration deal this year.

Chertoff’s appearance with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) and Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) is “in no way meant to signal an endorsement” of their compromise, Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said. But it was seen by supporters and opponents yesterday as a boost for the plan and a significant White House concession to conservatives.

The Administration can say that they are not endorsing the Pence-Hutchison immigration compromise plan all they want, but the optics of the DHS Cheif touring the border with the duo looks like a plug. This is in addition to the President’s personal interaction with Pence in regards to the plan (before Congress left for recess Pence had a personal audience with Bush who was reportedly intrigued with Pence’s plan). It looks to me like the White House is warming up to this would-be compromise package.

My column today focuses on the GOP’s recent uptick in the polls as a result of successes in the war on terror. You can read it here.

Kathryn Jean Lopez thinks Russ Feingold, not Hillary Clinton, will be the Dems pick in 2008 to run for President:

For far too long the assumption has been that the former First Lady would be the Dems’ obvious pick. The storyline had dynastic flair, plus the sexy-milestone first-woman-president aspect. It had the wronged-woman-coming-out-on-top Style-section and glossy headline opportunities. The idea launched many a Clinton-hater (hey, nothing wrong with that, I’m a card-carrier) book. It was scary while it lasted. But the moment’s gone.

Enter Sen. Russell Feingold, three-term Democrat from Wisconsin.

He’s positioned himself as the antiwar alternative. He’s got the advantage of being able to say to anyone disillusioned about Iraq that he was (in his mind) right all along — unlike Johnny-come-latelies like former Democratic vice=president nominee John Edwards, who recently apologized for his 2002 Senate vote for the Iraq invasion. And with the recent defeat of Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary, it’s Feingold’s hour. It’s his party and he can run if he wants to. The red carpet is out.

Despite her reliably liberal track record, Hillary Clinton is facing an anti-war liberal challenger in the NY Democratic primary. The New York Times reports:

As Ned Lamont basks in his Democratic primary victory in Connecticut, another antiwar underdog is trying to assume the same role of political giant-killer in next month’s elections in New York, though against much bigger prey: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But while Mr. Lamont united liberals and used $4 million of his own money to win his primary, Jonathan Tasini is struggling on a shoestring campaign to rise above his 12 percent standing in the polls, even as he hawks a message of left-wing anger over Iraq to an electorate that is more liberal than Connecticut’s.

Mr. Tasini has qualified for the Sept. 12 primary ballot against Mrs. Clinton, and his positions on the Iraq war, the death penalty and gay marriage are in step with the progressive groups and liberal bloggers that contributed volunteers, money and buzz to Mr. Lamont. Yet some of these partisans say they are deeply reluctant, and in some cases scared, to criticize or abandon Mrs. Clinton, who supported the invasion of Iraq.

In the meantime the contest in Connecticut is growing more fierce:

The campaign of Sen. Joe Lieberman yesterday described efforts to have Mr. Lieberman kicked out of the Democratic Party “Soviet-style tactics” and “dirty political tricks at its worst.”

“These are Soviet-style tactics,” Lieberman campaign spokesman Dan Gerstein said.
A group of peace activists has asked the New Haven registrar to strip the three-term Connecticut Democrat of his decades-long party association now that he’s running for Senate as an independent.
The activists say they are working independently of Ned Lamont, the anti-war candidate who defeated Mr. Lieberman in the Democratic primary earlier this month.

“The Lamont campaign had nothing to do with this,” said Lamont campaign manager Tom Swan. “We didn’t even know the law they were quoting. All our work is focused on beating Joe Lieberman on November 7.”