Day: January 9, 2007

In a blunt challenge to President Bush, the leader of the Senate’s new Democratic majority said Monday he will “look at everything” within his power to wind down the war in Iraq, short of cutting off funding for troops already deployed.

“I think we’ve got to tell the president what he’s doing as wrong. We’ve got to start bringing our folks home,” said Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, in remarks that portend a struggle if, as expected, Bush announces plans later this week for an increase in troop strength of 20,000.

Near the end of the year the front page of my local newspaper was taken up by the stories of three deaths.

The main headline extended across the top of the page: “Saddam Hanged.” Even opponents of capital punishment like me have to admit that if you’re going to have a hanging, Saddam was a worthy candidate. Afterward, his body was hauled to his hometown in the back of a pickup truck. Most of the world won’t miss him. He was 69.

Iraq Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked President George W. Bush to send more troops to his civil-war torn country and promised, in exchange, to step up Iraqi efforts to provide its own security, GOP Senator Gordon Smith said Monday.

Smith, who in December said Bush’s action in the failed Iraq war “bordered on criminal,” attended a meeting between Republican senators and top administration officials who confirmed the President’s plans to send in 20,000 more troops.

Notice to those tracking the progress of the new Democratic-led House of Representatives: Get ready to start the clock — but only after Monday’s big football game.

With some critics already jeering, Democrats on Tuesday kick off their “first 100 legislative hours,” during which they vow to pass much of the agenda that helped them win control of Congress from President George W. Bush’s Republicans in last year’s elections.

President Bush tried to distance himself from disgraced and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff but a photo showing him and the former GOP power broker together has surfaced.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics published the photo of Bush and Jack Abramoff on its website Monday.

President George W. Bush’s failed Presidency is often compared to another Republican President who fell from grace — Richard M. Nixon.

Bush’s choice of former Nixon deputy White House Counsel Fred Fielding as his new top lawyer only fuels such comparisons.

The announcement will be made Tuesday, according to a Bush administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the appointment had not been made.

A new clandestine video posted on the Internet showed the body of Saddam Hussein lying on a hospital trolley with a vivid red wound in his throat after being hanged.

The 27-second clip, seen on Tuesday, showed a sheet being removed to reveal Saddam’s neck severely twisted and with a smear of blood on his left cheek.

It was the third illicit film — and fourth video altogether — to emerge since he was hanged on December 30 in an execution that inflamed sectarian passions in Iraq.

House Democrats made good on one of their promises, restoring a budget procedure that the Republicans allowed to lapse in 2002 designed to restrain deficit spending.

The procedure, known as “pay-go,” shorthand for “pay as you go,” basically requires that any new spending or tax cuts be offset by spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere in the budget. It played a small but critical role in the string of four balanced budgets that ended in 2001.

If you think the world of presidential politics is already crowded, just wait. In this land of enchantment where the deer and the antelope still play and the politically corrupt Santa Fe Ring once held sway, the old timers are betting that the next entrant in the Democratic sweepstakes will be Bill Richardson, the former congressman, Energy secretary and now governor.

Democrats recaptured a big part of the Hispanic vote in this year’s elections, support that Latino activists caution won’t necessarily be there in the next contest.

Nearly seven in 10 Hispanic voters supported Democrats in the congressional elections, according to exit polls. But that’s not the whole story. Republican candidates in several key states did well among Hispanics, suggesting that Latinos could be important swing voters in the 2008 presidential election.