The Wednesday ‘BushWhack’ing

Hump day, let’s get a humpin’…

• A day after Sen. McCain, the republican presidential nominee btw, issued the call for Congress to lift the ban on new offshore drilling, “President” Bush will ask Congress today to lift that ban… (wow, what a totally unforeseen coincidence... it’s so hard to express sarcasm in the written form)
• “President” Bush appeared at the wake yesterday of NBC political icon Tim Russert… (while I did not always agree with Russert or the questions he asked, he was a political pundit without reproach who had one of the firmest grasps of the political world ever seen… and to not be able to see him enjoy and report on this historic race will leave many, including us at TBWA, with an empty feeling…)
• Sen. Obama is trying to drum-up union support and is meeting with various levels of AFL-CIO leaderships today and tomorrow in DC. (While the union’s overall support is almost a given – they’ve already started a campaign against McCain – some of the unions within the AFL-CIO had earlier endorsed Sen. Clinton, including the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and those are the ones that Obama needs to woo)
• An Obama-Hagel ticket? The idea is percolating…
• Sen. Chris Dodd says he got no “sweetheart deals” from embattled mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, despite the Senate ethics committee beginning a preliminary investigation into the claims. Said Dodd; “I don’t know that we did anything wrong. I negotiated a mortgage at a prevailing rate, a competitive rate.” (I think this story will get worse before it gets better…)
• And have we mentioned? That republicans are finally getting something straight? And it only took them 2 weeks to do so. A few weeks back, a story started circulating about claims, since proven false, that China is drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba… even Vice President Cheney got in on the act before someone told him he was wrong. Despite that, some vapid conservatives, including Jean Schmidt (r-OH), continued throwing the story out there. Now, more than 2 weeks since it started, republican leaders are finally backing away from the story as Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (r-OH) told Roll Call; “We’re not using the China talking point anymore.” (republicans… it’s like they have to be beaten over the head a dozen times before something sinks it…)