Op-Ed Columnist: Swords Into Plowshares By DAVID BROOKS, NYTimes

Remember when George Bush used to say he was going to change the tone in Washington? He lied about that. He couldn’t even reach out to Jim Jeffords, a moderate in his own party. He was never going to reach out to Democrats. He is too intellectually insecure. He can’t handle people who disagree with him, so he retreats into the cocoon of the like-minded.

G.O.P. Leader Solicits Money for Charity Tied to Convention By MICHAEL SLACKMAN, NYTimes

It is an unusual charity brochure: a 13-page document, complete with pictures of fireworks and a golf course, that invites potential donors to give as much as $500,000 to spend time with Tom DeLay during the Republican convention in New York City next summer — and to have part of the money go to help abused and neglected children. …

[C]ampaign finance watchdogs say Mr. DeLay’s effort can be seen as, above all, a creative maneuver around the recently enacted law meant to limit the ability of federal officials to raise large donations known as soft money. …

[B]ecause the money collected will go into a nonprofit organization, donors get a tax break. And Mr. DeLay will never have to account publicly for who contributed, which campaign finance experts say shields those who may be trying to win favor with one of the most powerful lawmakers in Washington.

See also: mjh’s Weblog Entry – 05/27/2003: “Tom Delay: I am the federal government.”

[Speaker of the House Tom] DeLay recently revealed how he felt about rules of general applicability. When he tried smoking a cigar in a restaurant on federal property, the manager told him it violated federal law. His response, according to The Washington Post, was, “I am the federal government.”

Lands Worth Leaving Alone (NYTimes Editorial)

The conservationists have reason to worry, for what we are seeing is the unhappy confluence of two states of mind. One is the administration’s indifference to the value of wilderness — indeed, Ms. Norton has essentially renounced her authority to recommend more lands for wilderness protection. The other is the durable fantasy that the nation can deal with oil dependency and natural gas shortages if the drillers are let loose on public lands.

The net result has been a strategy of fast-tracking oil leases throughout the West, most conspicuously in areas that the Interior Department regarded as worthy of wilderness designation in the days before the Bush administration. …

Fully 88 percent of the public lands in the Rocky Mountains are [already] open for oil and gas drilling; in Wyoming, the figure is 94 percent. At issue, really, are scraps of land, places the Wilderness Society calls “too wild to drill.” Relative to the country’s overall needs, these scraps contain only trivial amounts of oil and natural gas.

Nobody expects the administration to abandon its basic doctrine that aggressive exploitation of the public domain is necessary to achieve energy independence. Yet a rebellion is slowly taking shape, not only among Mr. Bush’s usual adversaries in the conservation movement and in Congress, but also among some of his natural constituents….

Newsday.com – Poll: Rationale for War Faulty

More than half, 52 percent, said the United States has found clear evidence that ousted leader Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al-Qaida terrorist network.

U.S. authorities, however, have found little that would suggest widespread prewar links between al-Qaida and Hussein’s government.

The rest of this poll is interesting in that it indicates people believe the case against Iraq was ”faulty”, but we did the right thing invading and we have to stay. mjh

Senate ends talkathon, not stalemate

With a 53-42 vote, Democrats succeeded in stopping further action on the nomination of Texas judge Priscilla Owen to a seat on a U.S. appeals court. It was the fourth time Democrats have blocked the Owen nomination.

They also voted 53-43 on California judge Carolyn Kuhl and 53-43 on another California judge, Janice Rogers Brown.

With the blocking of Kuhl and Brown, Democrats will have stopped six Bush nominees: Owen, Brown, Kuhl, Mississippi judge Charles Pickering, Alabama Attorney General William Pryor and Hispanic lawyer Miguel Estrada. Estrada dropped his nomination after losing nine filibuster votes.

The Senate has confirmed 168 Bush judicial nominees.

NPR : The 2004 Democratic Presidential Candidates, The Morning Edition Interviews

In an occasional series of interviews on Morning Edition, NPR’s Bob Edwards speaks with the candidates about why they want to be president and the issues that are important to them. In addition, npr.org offers background on the presidential hopefuls by NPR Political Editor Ken Rudin as well as extended versions of the interviews, full transcripts, a review of campaign buzzwords and links to candidates’ Web sites.

For Gephardt, Congress Role Is Both Platform and Hurdle By ROBIN TONER, NYTimes

”My name is Dick Gephardt, I’m going to win the Democratic nomination, and I’m going to beat George Bush in November,” he says.

”Everything we care about is vanishing before our eyes.” …

But Mr. Gephardt, a 62-year-old Missourian, decided to run anyway. To him the question was different: How could he not? He has worked under five presidents, “and I just know I can do this,” he said. “And I know I can do it better than the present occupant.” …

“My philosophy is different from W’s,” he says in his basic stump speech. “We’re all interconnected, dependent on one another. I would not have accomplished what I’ve accomplished without a lot of help.” …

“I’ve watched him up close and he’s not a bad person, he’s a fine person, but he’s not doing the job,” Mr. Gephardt said. “In some ways, he’s inexperienced. In other ways, he’s unknowledgeable. In other ways, he’s rigid and unwilling to change policies that I think just obviously need to be changed.”

During the first Democratic debate (here in Albuquerque), I appreciated Dick Gephardt saying the ‘Bush is a miserable failure.’ mjh

NPR : A Conversation with Rep. Richard Gephardt

NPR’s Michele Norris talks with Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri about the importance of labor unions and the state of his presidential bid.