Wednesday ‘BushWhack’ing

• Our thoughts, prayers and condolences to the family of Yolanda King, the eldest daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, who passed away suddenly late last night.
• The Feingold-Reid bill will probably be voted on today in the Senate. We’ll keep you posted.
• Also on the Senate’s agenda for the day, a measure sponsored by Sen. John Warner (R-VA), that would force "President" Bush to report to Congress how he “intends to revise U.S. strategy if the Iraqi government fails to meet certain benchmarks.” (That’s a pretty ballsy measure there, especially coming from a republican. This president has been given a blank check for far too long with Iraq, and it’s about time someone started putting some benchmarks under him. Unfortuantely, as this administration has proved far too often, they’ll ignore them and do whatever the hell they want anyway…)
• The White House’s unwavering support for Paul Wolfowitz is starting to, uh, waver as they signaled a willingness to replace him if the bank's executive board resolves an ethics controversy yet doesn’t fire him. (Personally, I think it’s a rouse. The White House knows that the executive board will fire him, it’s almost a given, so they’ve decided to curry some favor from Wolfowitz’ opponents by, all of a sudden, declaring they might fire him if they don’t. pretty shrewd move by the administration, but if I was the World Bank executive board, I wouldn’t fire Wolfowitz and force the White House to fire him. That would make for some very interesting theater…)
• The republican candidates for president staged their second debate last night and rather than attack the Democratic candidates, they attacked each other. (Good times… good times…). For more on the debate, click HERE, HERE & HERE.
• “President” Bush named Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute as a new White House “war czar” who will oversee the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the White House, they chose Mr. Lute because he is low-key and privately expressed skepticism about the escalation of troops. Lute’s selection ended a difficult () recruitment process as all of their initial candidates rejected the job and refused to be considered. (This was a hard job to place, primarily because everyone knows that the job will evolve (devolve?) into yet another Iraq war cheerleader position. Let’s make a bet, since General Lute didn’t support escalation originally, how long until he suddenly does and says it’s working? I give him 2 months, tops…)