GOP Senator David "I pay hookers while committing adultery on my wife" Vitter returns to DC for votes

I'm sure he had some very important family values legislation to jam down our throats. More from AP. Read More......

Open thread

Joe gets nervous when I leave the blog un-updated for too long. So help me keep Joe happy. Read More......

Did text-messaging lead to N.Y. crash?

Not politics, but scary as hell for any parent.

Text messages were sent and received on a 17-year-old driver's cell phone moments before the sport utility vehicle slammed head-on into a truck, killing her and four other recent high school graduates, police said.

Bailey Goodman was driving her friends to her parents' vacation home when her SUV, which had just passed a car, swerved back into oncoming traffic, hit a tractor-trailer and burst into flames. Five days earlier, the five teenagers had graduated together from high school in Fairport, a Rochester suburb.

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Iraq PM: Country can manage without U.S.

From AP:

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shrugged off U.S. doubts of his government's military and political progress on Saturday, saying Iraqi forces are capable and American troops can leave "any time they want."

One of his top aides, meanwhile, accused the United States of embarrassing the Iraqi government by violating human rights and treating his country like an "experiment in a U.S. lab."

Oh yeah, this is gonna be fun. Read More......

Iraq's UN ambassador living in $22,000/month apartment in NYC

It's good to be king. From the NY Post:

IRAQ'S ambassador to the United Nations, Hamid al Bayati, likes the high life. Bayati, who's been on the job for just over a year, is said to be living in a $22,000-a-month apartment at Trump World Tower on First Avenue. He's renting while the Iraqi U.N. Mission and official ambassador's residence on East 79th Street undergo a $40 million renovation. Where did the Iraqis get the cash? Newsmax.com reports the U.N. Security Council is paying with funds it once used to finance the now-terminated U.N. Iraq arms inspectors. When asked about the lavish use of the cash, Bayati refused comment. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad shrugged off the Iraqis' lush lifestyle by telling reporters, "$40 million is not a lot of money." According to U.N. documents, the U.S. delegation approved the transfer of the cash from the Security Council to Iraq. All of this comes as the federal Government Accounting Office reported the war in Iraq is costing American taxpayers $12 billion monthly.

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Obama: Shift troops to fight al-Qaida

Smart move. Bush and the Republicans need to be hit repeatedly on this point. They let Osama slip away. They chose to invade Iraq, where Al Qaeda never was, rather than go after Al Qaeda itself. And now Al Qaeda is stronger. Of course it is, we've ignored them for 6 years - well, other than training them in Iraq. Read More......

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

It's all about Iraq today on the talk shows. Stephen Hadley will be doing spin for Bush, which basically means lying about "progress."

Would be productive if someone asks Lugar and Warner why their new bill doesn't actually require Bush to implement a new plan for Iraq. Do they really think Bush will do it? And, if so, what gives them that confidence?

And, it's great to see that Jim Webb is a guest today. He's one of the best speakers on the Iraq issue and the Democrats should use him more.

Here's the lineup:

ABC's "This Week" _ National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley; Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind.

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CBS' "Face the Nation" _ Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Mark Kimmitt, deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East.

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NBC's "Meet the Press" _ Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Jim Webb, D-Va.; Republican strategist Mike Murphy and Democrat strategist Bob Shrum.

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CNN's "Late Edition" _ Sens. Joe Biden, D-Del., Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Jack Reed, D-R.I.; Hadley; and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

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"Fox News Sunday" _ Hadley and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

One other thing: I screwed up the link to Bob Geiger's post yesterday with the week's best editorial cartoons. (Sorry about that, Bob.) It's definitely worth a look - and this link now works. The cartoons were especially good last week because the GOPers really provided so much material. Read More......

Britain and its relationship with the US

A lot is being made of the recent comments by British ministers who have suggested changes in the relationship between the US and UK. Somehow there has been panic over those comments because they are pointing towards dialog and multi-lateralism. It wasn't that long ago that US also believed in those ideas so just because the Bush administration is afraid of them doesn't mean that the US is against them.

We've seen what good a lapdog does for the relationship, making it weaker and serving no benefit to anyone, so there should be no problem at all with Gordon Brown taking a fresh look at how the two countries interact and moving it back to where we were in the not so distant past. It's a healthy conversation to have and instead of running in fear, as the Bush people are doing, we ought to embrace this update that will help us all grow. There should be no need to make excuses or apologies...this is the way grown adults behave when they talk and have dialog. This is how friends behave with each other. Read More......