I’m Not Going to Do This Every Day

Gallup: Bush Approval Rating Down to 60 Percent Among Republicans

Dana Milbank, fine reporter turned fine columnist, has a telling bit from today’s Washington Post about the last days of W’s presidency.

George W. Bush gave a long speech at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base yesterday making his case, for, well, for following whatever his lead is in Iraq. On bit keeps bugging me:

As this debate unfolds, I ask people on both sides to keep an open mind, and to take a close look at the situation on the ground. Here is what one scholar and critic of the war recently wrote: “No one can spend some 10 days visiting the battlefields in Iraq without seeing major progress in every area. If the United States provides sustained support to the Iraqi government — in security, governance, and development — there is now a very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state.”

And….that’s it. No mention of who this “scholar and critic of the war” is. Who is this person? Fred Kaplan? I kinda doubt it’s him. Dick Cheney? Some 5th Grader in Houston? A product of the fertile mind of a Bush speechwriter? Also, no mention of whether the “critic of the war” quoted had actually been to Iraq recently, or had just been reading Bush Administration press releases.

Please, W. At least give us a little effort here…

A nice bit on Slate’s XX factor (an entirely unrelated aside: visually, ‘XX factor’ reads to me like a porn blog, or a blog about really large clothing. I know blog names are hard to come up with (see, for instance, the lame name of this site), but really, Slate, you’re being too clever by half with this one) about Mike Huckabee’s gracious response to Obama’s race speech:

On Obama’s speech:

… I think that, you know, Obama has handled this about as well as anybody could. And I agree, it’s a very historic speech. … And I thought he handled it very, very well.

And on the Rev. Wright:

… One other thing I think we’ve got to remember: As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say, “That’s a terrible statement,” I grew up in a very segregated South, and I think that you have to cut some slack. And I’m going to be probably the only conservative in America who’s going to say something like this, but I’m just telling you: We’ve got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, “You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus.” And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would, too. I probably would, too. In fact, I may have had a more, more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

Funny how you don’t see Mark Penn or Howard Wolfson or Hillary Clinton saying things like that.

True. Though to be fair, Mike Huckabee isn’t running against Obama, so he can afford to be gracious. Read more XX factor here.

The Pentagon is suddenly less interested in publicizing an internal study that found no evidence of a direct link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Hmm.

Andrew Romano makes a fine, counterintuitive point about media coverage of the 2008 Presidential race

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As they say, dying=easy; comedy=hard, and that’s certainly been the case over at 23/6, the new Huffpost humor site; it’s been mostly miss on the hit/miss meter so far. Still, this (h/t Andrew Romano) is really nice:

Welcome to the Internets, former Newsweek Intern.

Two interesting bits in today’s papers to give one pause:

From the Washington Post:

Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs

Which is of course creepy–what, are you going to have to carry around a bug zapper now every time you want to have a little privacy outdoors–but also a little reassuring, because, after all, our government doesn’t spy on its citizens.

Oh.

Fred Kaplan has his usual good thoughts on Iraq, this time asking the obvious question: If we’re spending $500 billion a year on our military budget NOT COUNTING the billions we’re wasting in Iraq and Afghanistan, what are we getting for our money?

Mike Hirsh has a very nice piece about Blackwater, Bush, and the no-accountability presidency.

And Tony Karon continues his brilliant thoughts about the U.S. and Iran