Day: October 17, 2006

Mike McGavick, a Republican waging an uphill race for the Senate, called Monday for the replacement of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the creation of a bipartisan panel to propose new directions for the Iraq war.

But the plan drew a quick response from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., who seemed to take issue with an implication that he supported McGavick’s ideas.

McGavick said he had talked about his ideas with Warner and Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., on Monday following their recent criticism of the administration’s handling of the war.

We only have to look out our windshields for proof: Commuting traffic is getting worse. But now there’s scientific proof in the form of a new report from the National Academies.

We are leaving home earlier — more and more often before 6 a.m., driving farther and longer, on the order of an hour or more, making more stops on the way and, by and large, doing it alone.

All of this must drive the traffic planners nuts, because every time they get their hands on the problem, it moves.

Sen. Joe Lieberman might as well have worn a bull’s-eye during Monday’s debate with his Democratic and Republican rivals.

Democrat Ned Lamont labeled the three-term Connecticut senator a career politician in lockstep with President Bush on Iraq. Long-shot Republican Alan Schlesinger described himself as the only conservative in a race against two liberals, warning GOP voters about Lieberman’s mostly Democratic voting record.

Lieberman took the jabs and delivered a few of his own.

When it came out last month that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had privately opined that Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia had a “very hot” temperament because of her ethnicity, the Latina Republican from Cathedral City wasn’t mad.

In fact, she said at the time, she was going to keep campaigning for him.

In fact, she reportedly told a high school economics class in La Quinta last Tuesday, “I wouldn’t kick him out of my bed.” The remark, reported by the Palm Springs-based Desert Sun Sunday, came when Garcia, who is single, was asked her impressions of the governor, who isn’t.