Home / thinkprogress.org rss archive / August-28-2007


Fox News gives slim coverage to Craig scandal.
Media Matters reports, “From 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET on August 27, Fox News devoted only 3 minutes and 47 seconds to segments discussing Sen. Larry Craig’s lewd-conduct arrest. By contrast, MSNBC aired 8 minutes and 26 seconds of coverage on the story, while CNN aired 20 minutes and 38 seconds.”

Jean Schmidt takes heat for Iraq stance.
A “Take A Stand Day” event this evening in Ohio got particularly heated. A group of anti-war demonstrators gathered outside the office of Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH), the congresswoman who infamously attacked John Murtha in a House floor speech in late 2005. While Schmidt supports Bush’s escalation, a poll of constituents in her district indicate [...]

Take A Stand.
Americans Against Escalation in Iraq is wrapping up its Iraq summer campaign today with Take A Stand Day. From coast to coast, thousands of concerned citizens will turn out to attend “Take a Stand” events and vigils organized by MoveOn.org, including one in Connecticut that will send a message to Sen. Joe Lieberman and Rep. [...]

Fear-mongering Bush warns of Iranian ‘nuclear holocaust.’
In his speech about Iraq to the American Legion today, President Bush warned that allowing Iran to pursue “technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.” Watch it: [...]

Craig: It’s the Idaho paper’s fault that I pleaded guilty.
Repeatedly claiming, “I am not gay,” Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) blamed the media for his guilty plea of disorderly conduct. I have been “relentlessly and viciously harassed by the Idaho Statesman,” Craig complained. “The Statesman has engaged in this witchhunt. In pleading guilty, I overreacted in Minneapolis because of the stress the Idaho Statesman investigation [...]

Senate GOP leaders call for ethics review of Craig.
AP reports:Senate Republican leaders called for an ethics committee review Tuesday into Idaho Sen. Larry Craig’s guilty plea in a police sting operation this summer in an airport men’s room.Republican leaders also are ”examining other aspects of the case to see if additional action is required,” Sen. Mitch McConnell and other top GOP lawmakers said [...]

Beck: ‘Nobody cares’ about Gonzales resignation.
Yesterday on his CNN Headline News show, Glenn Beck mentioned the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, stating that he was “surprised” the “media jumped all over this story”:Well, after weathering the storm of congressional calls for his resignation, Alberto Gonzales has finally done just that, he has resigned. But the thing is, I don’t [...]

Gannon: I’m ‘the most honest’ White House reporter.
Jeff Gannon, the infamous former male escort who for two years gained a White House press pass using a pseudonym, is releasing a book next week, in which he chronicles what he sees as liberal bias in the White House press corps. “In my mind, I was the most honest reporter [in the White House [...]

Hannity Ignores Stories On Gonzales’ Resignation, Sen. Craig’s Arrest
The resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the arrest of Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) dominated yesterday’s news cycle. All three network evening news shows — ABC, CBS, and NBC — covered the stories. Both The New York Times and Washington Post put the Gonzales resignation on the front page, and covered the Craig [...]

Brownback on Craig: It’s ‘not good,’ ‘very odd.’
Today, on MSNBC, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) was asked to respond to the news that his colleague, Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), had pled guilty to a misdemeanor involving ‘lewd conduct’ in a public restroom. “It is not good,” said Brownback. “There is a guilty plea involved in this. But I think we ought to look [...]

Conservatives Begin Calling For Craig To Resign Over ‘Lewd Conduct’ And Guilty Plea
Yesterday, Roll Call revealed that Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) was arrested in June for “lewd conduct” in a public restroom at a Minnesota airport. On Aug. 8, he pleaded guilty to “misdemeanor disorderly conduct.” While Craig says the police misconstrued his actions and that he “should not have pled guilty,” pressure for him to resign [...]

Baird verbally flogged over pro-escalation stance.
For three hours during a townhall meeting last night, Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) “was verbally flogged by hundreds of his constituents for no longer supporting the quick withdrawal of troops from Iraq.” “There is only one way to end an illegal and immoral war, and that’s to end it,” said Zamme Joi. “You have screwed [...]

Invite: blogger event on FISA.
Tomorrow, beginning at 10:30 am, the Center for American Progress will host a two-part event examining the recent amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The first panel will feature prominent bloggers and activists who have led the campaign to rein in the administration’s quest for expansive powers. If you’re in the D.C. area and [...]

Despite Announcing His ‘Retirement,’ General Who Oversaw Walter Reed Scandal Still Serving In Army
On March 12, the Pentagon announced that Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, who oversaw neglect at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, was resigning, effective immediately. NBC News Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski reported that it was “very likely” Kiley “would be reduced in retirement, at least one rank” and “be forced to [...]

Pilgrims flee Iraqi city amidst violence.
Police ordered a curfew and told “hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to leave the Iraqi city of Kerbala on Tuesday as a battle raged between Iraqi security forces and gunmen near two of Shi’ite Islam’s holiest shrines. A senior security source in Baghdad said 25 people had been killed, mostly policemen.”

Former H.W. Bush justice appointee ‘looking very good.’
NBC reports the latest speculation on Gonzales’ successor: “Per a source close to the White House, ex-Deputy Attorney General George J. Terwilliger III is ‘looking very good’ to replace Alberto Gonzales. Former Solicitor General Ted Olson and former appellate judge Laurence Silberman are ‘also in the running.’ And Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and former [...]

Petraeus Softened Intelligence Communitys Judgments About State Of Iraq Violence
The Washington Post reports that Gen. David Petraeus, after reviewing an early draft of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, succeeded in altering the document’s judgments about the violence in Iraq:The NIE, requested by the White House Iraq coordinator, Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, in preparation for the testimony, met with resistance from U.S. military [...]

Spitzer threatens to sue federal govt over SCHIP.
Today in the New York Daily News, Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) sharply criticizes the Bush administration’s cuts, which block the state’s plan to expand coverage “to children whose parents earn up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, from 250 percent currently.” From his op-ed: There are 400,000 uninsured children in New York. [...]

Gonzales’ grammatically incorrect farewell.
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank looks at the fitting departure of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales: From “good morning” to “God bless America,” he spoke for all of one minute and 41 seconds — during which he managed to consult his written statement 26 times and to avoid saying a single word about the roiling scandals [...]

ThinkFast: August 28, 2007
In what officials call “the largest ring of fraud and kickbacks uncovered in” Iraq yet, federal agents are investigating “the purchase and delivery of billions of dollars of weapons, supplies and other matriel to Iraqi and American forces.” One investigation involves a senior American officer who worked closely with Gen. David Petraeus in training and [...]