Rumblings Of A Sleepy Blogger

Been a long day.

It wasn't a particular busy news day, but let's take a run through the stories creating the greatest buzz before I retire for the night... A new NY Times/CBS confirms the findings of the USA Today/Gallup poll- President Bush polling at an all-time low of 31% approval. Even lower percentage numbers were found in regards to his approval specifically on the separate issues of Iraq, the economy, foreign policy, immigration, and gas prices. And, as I noted yesterday, that's without any substantive hearings into these issues. The poll also features good news for Democrats. The article notes, "By a margin of better than two to one, Democrats were seen as having more new ideas than Republicans." And, as I'll note right now, that's without any substantive effort by Democrats to articulate those ideas. Most interesting to me was this sentence, "Fifty percent said Democrats come closer than Republicans in sharing their moral values." Republicans losing the moral values crowd? Time for another gay marriage ban.

Meanwhile, John Podhoretz insists that things are actually going great with the war and everything else, but conservatives are just too tired to defend Bush. A moron, as always.

And the liberal blogosphere helps flesh out a good progressive policy agenda.

Tim Russert's grilling of Rep. Pelosi this past weekend, in which he pushed the 'Democrats only want to impeach Bush' talking point, is creating a lot of chatter. How Pelosi came off is a highly debated question. Some journalists are arguing strongly that the Democrats should avoid making investigations part of their plan for when they gain control of the House or Senate. Many bloggers take offense to this argument, noting that it seems like an obvious ploy to get the Democrats to back down on that front, and also noting that many Americans likely do want some oversight to return. Sen. Feingold appears to agree with this sentiment, stating (specifically in regards to standing up against the Hayden-CIA nomination) that "The consultants and the pundits and others will tell you these positions are “losers” — I’ve heard that literal language for this — and that it is dangerous to let there be any real light between our position and the White House’s position, or else you’ll get called soft on terrorism.... [T]he pundits in this town will somehow suggest that this, too, just like my censure resolution, will cause the President’s numbers to shoot up. You remember that happening, right? It didn’t happen at all, but that’s what they’re gonna say, but it’s not right."

Speaking of standing up, a former NSA Director is speaking out against President Bush's spying program.

In other news, President Bush doesn't want Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a penpal.

Also, Bush's tax cuts are extended. The Deficit Party scores another win for wealthy voters.

Meanwhile, in a developing story, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson may have violated the law when he "publicly admitted that he canceled a government contract with a business because the CEO was critical of President Bush". Also of concern was his followup statement which seemed to imply that money such contracts can/should be used to fund political campaigns. Sen. Lautenberg has demanded his resignation as others call for an investigation. Jackson's spokesperson is now trying to insist that Jackson just made up that story for anecdotal purposes.

Yea right, and Porter Goss just suddenly resigned because he didn't like John Negroponte.

Speaking of that mess, new info on 'hookergate' continues to be uncovered.

Finally, Eric Alterman takes a look at the recent Boston Globe article exploring how "President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution." Alterman questions why this astounding revelation has gotten so little coverage in the mainstream media. To be fair, Mr. Alterman, Stephen Colbert did dedicate his 'The Word' segment to this topic on Monday's show (clip titled 'Not').

You see, when Colbert isn't emasculating the timid DC press corp, he's also doing their job.