The Friday ‘BushWhack’ing

TGIFF…

• The Labor Department released its unemployment numbers today that show the rate of unemployment rose from 6.1% in September to 6.5% , marking the highest unemployment rate since March 1994…
• CNN headline that makes me giddy; “Lieberman may have day of reckoning with Democrats.” (Giggity)
• Congressman Rahm Emanuel has accepted President-elect Obama’s offer to become his COS… a move that is drawing sharp criticism from conservatives who say he’s too much of a partisan pitbull. One of those criticizing was former Bush COS Karl Rove… the irony is SO thick, yet I doubt one conservative can see that.
• Expect more Obama administration picks as soon as today…
• Remember how I said that Gov. Palin would probably start sniping at Sen. McCain after his campaign tried to throw her under the bus? Well… it’s started, get the popcorn, this should be entertaining…
• This should give EVERYONE pause as CNN learned recently that computers at the headquarters of the Obama and McCain campaigns were hacked earlier this year by a “foreign entity” that downloaded a “serious amount” of files… the FBI is investigating the incident but is refusing to release any details about the hacking. (This is staggering news, yet not entirely surprising in this day and age…)
• Sen. Jim DeMint (r-SC) is upset with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s toleration of convicted felon Ted Stevens and is “pushing his party’s leadership to expel” Stevens during this month’s ‘lame duck’ session… (Wow… when THE most conservative member of your party urges the expulsion of Stevens, you can get a better idea of just how badly the gop is damaged. The question remains; will the party rally around Stevens – thus risking further alienation of the public – or kick him out? Stay tuned)
• And have we mentioned? That presidential historians are, again, weighing in on “President” Bush’s presidency? With some of them labeling his time in office as ‘battered’, ‘incompetent’ and ‘unlucky’, a few suggest that his legacy could end up with a better reputation down the road, ala Harry Truman who, at varying points in his presidency, earned some of the highest and yet also some of the lowest public approval ratings in history, (87% approval in June 1945 compared to 23% in January 1952). Some of the things that the historians chalk up as ‘unlucky’ (wrong place, wrong time) are direct consequences of him and his administration’s policies – the economy being the largest. It will be interesting to see how Bush’s legacy ages, but I doubt that his presidency will ever be considered more than ‘middling.’