Day: October 13, 2005

The WaPo has an interesting piece on Harriet Miers, detailing her day-to-day role as White House counsel.

Uncle Teddy has been hittin the sauce.

In an AP story, the senator from Massachusetts said he’d support John Kerry in a 2008 run for the White House.

Sen. Edward Kennedy called John Kerry, the 2004 nominee, an “able, gifted and talented political leader.”

He criticized President Bush’s leadership and said of the American people: “Every day, I think they regret that John wasn’t elected.”

Hiccup.

Peggy Noonan has a few suggestions for the Bush administration as the Miers matter continues to swell. The column today is one of her better ones. She provides plenty of memorable quotes, like this one regarding the ‘sexism’ charge:

Sending Laura Bush out to make her first mistake as first lady, agreeing with Matt Lauer that sexism is probably part of the reason for opposition to Ms. Miers, was embarrassingly inept and only served to dim some of the power of this extraordinary resource.

As for Ed Gillespie and his famous charge of sexism and elitism, I don’t think serious conservatives believe Ed is up nights pondering whiffs and emanations of class tension and gender bias in modern America. It was the ignorant verbal lurch of a K Street behemoth who has perhaps forgotten that conservatives are not merely a bloc, a part of the base, a group that must be handled, but individuals who are and have been in it for serious reasons, for the long haul, and often at considerable sacrifice. They don’t deserve to be patronized by people they’ve long strained to defend.

Go read the rest.

Well, at least it was for me, and it is today for Ian Schwartz who runs The Political Teen. I’ve come to rely on Ian as a video-blogger and a great source for information that I need as I write for PunditGuy. His site is a great asset to the blogosphere.

Congratulations Ian!

Because if we aren’t careful, this headline could be reality.

Democrats see dream of ’06 victory taking form.

Suddenly, Democrats see a possibility in 2006 they have long dreamed of: a sweeping midterm election framed around what they describe as the simple choice of change with the Democrats or more of an unpopular status quo with the Republican majority.

Even if the Iraq, Katrina, Rita, and Harriet combination isn’t the perfect storm Democrats are praying for, it is only the perception that matters. If a majority of Americans believe those forces, along with the problems encircling DeLay, Rove, and Frist are enough to topple the GOP, we’ll experience an ’06 cycle like the Democrats experienced the ’94 cycle. We’ll wake up to the hard cold reality that we took our eye off the ball and promptly got spanked. No matter if we lose the majority or even just a couple of seats in Congress, the damage will be done and we’ll be wounded as we head into the 2008 presidential campaign.

Wake up. Be smart. There’s no time to waste. Let’s cool the infighting and get our act back together. We can’t afford to let the Democrats take advantage of the current environment. For if they do, they’ll command the attention, they’ll control the dialog, and they’ll convince the public that Republicans need to go.

And that’s not reality.