The issues that are prominent today in the United States call into question what role government ought to play in dealing with them. Some say as little as possible, others to whatever degree is necessary to meet the needs of the people. Underlying these nostrums often is a fundamentally different understanding of people.
The CIA Friday named as head of its espionage service a former senior official who quit three years ago amid a staff rebellion against the agency’s former director.
CIA director Michael Hayden announced the appointment of Michael Sulick as head of the National Clandestine Service, hailing him as a “proven leader who understands our agency and the intelligence community.”
Sulick was associate deputy director for operations when he resigned in August 2004 after a clash with then-director Porter Goss’s chief of staff over the treatment of another agency employee.
The US military will be tied down in Iraq with 100,000 troops at least through the presidency of George W. Bush, and a modest size residual force will be there for years to come.
And that is a best-case scenario, as articulated by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday after Bush announced plans for more modest troop cuts by mid-July.
“One of the sad aspects of war is there is no script,” Gates told reporters. “That history hasn’t been written yet. And the enemy has a vote.”
White men, conservatives, evangelicals and other pivotal blocs are divided among the Republican Party’s leading contenders for president, leaving the race for the 2008 GOP nomination highly fluid, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll.
Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson are each attracting significant support from core GOP groups, based on the poll conducted this week. Even Sen. John McCain of Arizona, whose campaign has been staggered by money problems and staff shake-ups, is backed by solid shares of suburban, college-educated and Midwestern Republican voters.
Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani criticized Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton in a full-page ad in Friday’s New York Times, accusing her of assailing Iraq war commander Gen. David Petraeus’ character.
In response, a liberal anti-war group is running a $50,000 ad campaign against Giuliani in Iowa, which begins the presidential nominating process. The television ad from MoveOn.org Political Action, which will start airing next week, accuses Giuliani of a “betrayal of trust” for abandoning the Iraq Study Group.
Norman Hsu was politician’s dream who became a nightmare. He knew people, hosted fundraisers, solicited donations. And he was an unabashed fan of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Now in disgrace, his role as one of Clinton’s top money bundlers will dog him and her presidential campaign while law enforcement authorities investigate his business and political dealings.