The Friday ‘BushWhack’ing

EDITORS NOTE: Since the nomination process is, for all intents and purposes, complete, we at TBWA are dropping the Friday Presidential Race ‘BushWhack’ing and will roll all election news into the normal Daily’s until we get closer to Election Day… thus saving you, and us, the horror of obsessing on the election while it is still 20 weeks away.

• CNN asks; “Do Lobbyists get a bum rap?” That’s some mighty fine reporting there Lou...
  Earlier this week Sen. McCain started questioning some of the past dealings of Jim Johnson, chosen by the Obama campaign to find a VP candidate. Johnson resigned, so now McCain is setting his sight (which I imagine is poor) on one of the two remaining committee members, Eric Holder. (Yes, heaven forbid McCain do something like talk about the issues, let’s instead just attack members of a committee looking for a VP candidate and who has very little weight in the grand scheme of the campaign. Sounds to me as if someone is nervous and starting to over-react by attacking every little thing…)
• Ron Paul has suspended his presidential campaign… yes, he was STILL running.
• “President” Bush is meeting with Pope Benedict XVI today… insert your own joke here, but remember to watch for lightening.
• The House voted 274-137 yesterday to extend unemployment benefits by 13 weeks… naturally because it helps the average American, the White House is threatening a Veto…though more than two-thirds of the House voted for the bill and that would be more than enough to override a presidential veto. The larger problem is that it faces an uncertain future in the Senate because it’s not known when they will take it up. (Once again, the average person gets screwed with their pants on, way to go guys!)
• A new Pew Research Center study found that interest abroad for the looming presidential election is skyrocketing. A majority of those polled believe the next president is likely to change U.S. foreign policy for the better, especially if that president is Sen. Obama (yay). The study also found that Bush continues to receive negative reviews internationally (not a surprise to anyone that hasn’t had their hands over their eyes or fingers in their ears). Expect to see more about this later today…
• The gop’s next target in the presidential race will be (shakes Magic 8 Ball)… Michelle Obama! (Yeah, cause going after the spouse is ALWAYS a good strategy… mark my words, if the right goes after Michelle, it will be open season on Cindy McCain, and for some reason I imagine her having a whole heckuva lot more juicer baggage…)
• Speaking of shaking a Magic 8 Ball. One of Clinton’s strategists says the reason her campaign faltered was due to strategy disagreements. (I can do them one better and sum it up more succinctly. It was due to Mark Penn… the man who failed to grasp many things – Obama’s strength, 50-state strategy, etc – was the downfall of the campaign and by the time they pushed him out, it was too late… personal note to Ms. Clinton; if you want to run again in the future, stay away from Penn)
• Attorney General Michael Mukasey said this morning that he is “disappointed” by the Supreme Court’s ruling on habeas corpus but doesn’t expect the decision to “unleash a torrent of court filings from detainees seeking their freedom.” Mukasey then said that they won’t “concern military commission trials, which will continue to proceed.” (Uh-huh… more skirting of the law perhaps?)
• And have we mentioned? That Vice President Cheney is a Kindergarten drop-out? While Cheney’s less-than-stellar record at Yale is common knowledge (he left — or was kicked out depending on whom you talk to — after two years) he revealed on a radio interview yesterday that he had to attend two kindergartens because he “got kicked out of one school and had to go to the other one.” (Wow… attitude problems at that early of an age – who would have thunk it?)