Posts by Simon Grigg
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Incidentally the most recent polling this week at Polling Report puts Obama level pegging with Rudy....a jump of some 5 points in a week. Early days, but, as I said earlier, he has the momentum right now
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James,
There was more to Novak and swiftboating than you imply. From Wikipedia:
his son, Alex Novak, is the Director of Marketing for the Swift Boat Veterans' publisher, Regnery Publishing. At the time he said that he didn't "think it relevant." Two months later Salon.com reported that Regnery's owner is also the publisher of Novak's own US$297 (annual rate) newsletter and that Novak is on the board of a foundation whose chief holdings are the stock of Regnery's parent company
Your defense of the man is noted, but I'm sorry he has little credibility.
Who to believe? Perhaps the judge who determined the case.
Victoria Toensing' is a tad partisan. Read her various op/eds over the years. Toensing's opinion here is of little value when she had no involvement in or knowledge of Plame's day to day activities. Hayden and Waxman do, and therefore their judgment must stand.
Your comment "First Husband who will be groping waitresses at State functions, and heaven only knows what else, for 4 or 8 years. Unfortunately, Bill can fit in a lot of groping in 8 years, and this is not a thought that most Americans find very pleasant." does you no credit though. In fact Gallup polling in Feb indicated that 78% of Americans felt he would be an asset as a best man.
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Thus the call for investigation is aimed at proving or laying to rest those concerns.
Exactly. Sidney Blumenthal puts it fairly well in The Guardian today. There is an aura out there, rightly or wrongly. that something is not quite right in this. If there is no fire under the smoke this can be put to rest by sworn testimony (and perhaps the provision of the missing 18 days of emails).
The more the right says there is no story here, and the more Bush threatens executive privilege, the more this story will look like somebody has something to hide. And that is not something the Republicans need right now,
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James,
Novak has not come out of this well, as you must agree. Whether I take his word or the that of the serving CIA chief is a matter of relativity.On one hand we have the cries of a Democratic conspiracy
That confirmed Republican suspicions that Hayden is too close to Democrats.
from a journalist whose past includes the word "swiftboating".
On the other we have the head of the CIA, under expert advisement, making crucial testimony to Congress....
Who to believe??? mmmmm...a tough one, no?
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You can even hear it change over the years in some of the long-term presenters like Angela D'Audney.
which was one of the reasons, as I recall, Pete Sinclair clicked so well with a generation. He didn't try...he simply was and he sounded like it. Oddly, when he moved to Mastermind the affectations did begin, perhaps because he though he was speaking to a different demographic (rather than simply his earlier demographic grown up)
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James,
I'm not going to take Novak, who is a protagonist on the wrong side of the Plame debacle, writing for RCP, over Waxman. I'm sorry but that veers towards the ludicrous.
I'm aware of the Florida newspaper investigation, but, as I said, others disagree. The New York Times own investigation came to the conclusion that under any scenario, if the counting had continued, Gore would have won. You'll note that even the Herald says there are some scenarios under which Gore would have won. It is nowhere near as clear as you imply. And that excludes the voter registration scandal and all other other pre election day trickery.As to Rudy's poll ratings this far out and their relevance...two words...Bush / Clinton....it means nothing. Any Republican who can't distance himself from the disastrous policies of the Bush Jr White House is already dead, and I thint McCain has that problem. Rudy may be that man, but I suspect he's running for the wrong party.
My gut feeling is that Obama, if he can get the nod, has the momentum in a nation that seems to be increasingly desirous of moving out of a particularly dark and evil period in it's history and regenerating what it perceives to be the its moral, philosophical and political soul.
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The CIA seems to disagree with you on her covert state:
Plame's testimony on the covert nature of her job was buttressed by a statement that Waxman read at the hearing's opening which, he said, was approved by Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the CIA's director. The statement said that Plame worked in a covert capacity at the time of Novak's column and that her employment status was classified under an executive order.
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And I'm willing to wait for a less partisan opinion on Gonzales than a Morris post on Real Clear Politics, although that such a swipe against Bush's White House is found on such a site is worth noting. It seems that nobody wants to put their hand up and rally for the prez these days. What's also notable is the number of Republicans out there now who are saying that AG should go.
In a sign of Mr Gonzales's loss of support among Republicans as well as Democrats, the senate voted overwhelmingly yesterday to end the Bush administration's power to appoint prosecutors on its own. The senate passed a bill by 94 to two that overturned a provision in the Patriot Act that gave Mr Bush the power.
And I wonder where those missing 16 days have gone....it may be a non scandal to you but it seems to be growing daily..I'd rather wait and see before making definitive judgements.
There are more opinions than actual voters on who won in Florida it seems. Certainly its pretty hard to state "Bush won by 500" with such certainty, as you do.
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Gore...I'm increasingly fascinated by the momentum that seems to be gathering for the Gore / Obama ticket which seems,on the face of it, to be potentially unbeatable. That takes Gore way past Hillary in polling totals
Especially if the speculation, as I type, about Edwards withdrawing is correct, although that is simply a what if right now.
Certainly the election seems to be, this far out, the Democrats to lose rather than the other way around. But its one hell of a long way, no?
Right now the most fascinating thing happening in US politics is the growing (by the day) Gonzalez scandal. It seems Bush can't help but attract dirt these days as he fumbles towards January 2009.
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deam martin would be much, much cooler
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Funny too how sometimes more ppl show up for a 'reunion' tour than did the first time round.
ain't that the truth..The Newmatics for example pulled far more people to the sold out Kings Arms than they ever did in eighty whatever. Tom Sampson's "If we were still as skinny as we were back then, then they could get even more in" quote was appropriate.
Crowded House...I guess the other fella needs the money (and the estate of the dead one). Neil doesn't but I suspect, and that's all it is, that Neil likes to sell records and nobody buys his solo albums.