The Tuesday ‘BushWhack’ing

• Gen. Petraeus recently said on Capitol Hill; we’ve seen “significant but uneven progress” that is “fragile and reversible”… uh-huh. So it’s changed since last time; how?
• Senators Obama, Clinton and McCain are all involved in today’s festivities. McCain and Clinton are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Obama is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in front of whom Petraeus will appear this afternoon. (Wow, this kind of plays into the hands of all three of them, doesn’t it?)
• The pressure on “President” Bush to skip the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony is growing…
• ABC’s Cokie Roberts defends Dick Cheney and his ignoring of the American public.
• “President” Bush wants Congress to vote on the free trade agreement between the US and Colombia, and he signed a letter that gives them 90-working days to vote on the agreement that a majority of Democrats, including our 2 presidential candidates, oppose. (first of all, if they don’t vote on it after 90 days, what happens? Second, can this be viewed as anything but another legacy-building attempt for Bush?)
• With Mark Penn finally getting jettisoned from the Clinton campaign (too late if you ask me, he should have been cut loose months ago), can they recoup and make a charge? (My opinion; I doubt it… almost every strategic decision he’s made has either completely backfired or has had a lesser effect than desired. Think about this; had Clinton gotten rid of Penn when he refused to step down as CEO of his PR firm for the length of the campaign, how different would the political landscape look now?)
• With 2 weeks until they head to the polls, the Democratic race in Pennsylvania is tightening up. A CNN “poll of polls” (Seriously? They’re polling polls?) shows Sen. Clinton with 49% to Sen. Obama’s 42% with 9% undecided. Stay tuned…
• And have we mentioned? That while being President is not a wealth-creating endeavor, being a former President is? When President Hayes left office in 1881, he reportedly became a chicken farmer, compare that to President Clinton who earned a whopping $52 million in speeches alone since leaving office. (So, is there a way to be a ‘former’ president without having to act as president… oh wait, that’s what George has been doing for almost 8 years, my mistake…)