Month: March 2006

According to opensecrets.org, this isn’t the first time Josh Bolten has stepped in when someone in the Bush Administration lost favor.

Josh Bolten was originally slotted to handle much of the president’s domestic policy agenda. However, as the administration soured on Larry Lindsay’s performance as head of the National Economic Council, Bolten gradually took over. He began dealing with all economic matters, and Bush came to depend on him for honing ideas for the president’s consideration. Once Mitch Daniels, former head of the Office of Management and Budget, resigned in late 2002, Bolten was quickly targeted to fill the slot. Credited as the architect of the Bush tax cuts as well as the hiring of Steve Friedman as NEC chairman, Bolten has become one of Bush’s closest advisors next to Karl Rove.

In an article called, “No Relation No. 14: The Bush White House Edition” Slate says unlike the U.N. guy, this Bolten has an interesting friend.

How do you tell the difference between Bush administration officials Josh Bolten and John Bolton? Both worked in the Reagan administration, both worked for Bush’s dad, and both worked on Bush’s legal team during the Florida recount before landing jobs with the administration. And their names sound alike. But the similarities end there:

Josh Bolten is the White House’s deputy chief of staff for policy. That makes him the president’s chief domestic policy adviser, and since Sept. 11 he has headed the White House’s new “domestic consequences group” that has developed post-attack legislation such as the airline bailout and the stimulus package. The New Republic’s Ryan Lizza calls him “increasingly powerful” and “the anonymous fourth man in the inner circle of Bush’s staff” (after Andy Card, Karl Rove, and Karen Hughes). U.S. News says he has emerged after the terrorist attacks as Bush’s “chief economic architect,” and the Washington Post says Bolten “has a quiet hand in all domestic policy and international economic policy.”

“Bolten is publicity-shy — the rare profile of him always mentions that he didn’t want the story written” but he has received some attention for his relationship with Bo Derek. The Austin American-Statesman says the two are just friends but that the relationship has included “several briefings” and a motorcycle ride. (Bolten owns a Harley.)

Just last week, President Bush indicated he was resisting calls from within his party to shake up his senior staff. Today, he has reversed that stand and will announce the resignation of his chief of staff, Andrew Card:

White House chief of staff Andy Card has resigned and will be replaced by budget director Josh Bolten, an administration official said Tuesday…

At a White House news conference last week, Bush was asked about rumors that a shakeup in the White House staff was in the works. Bush said he was “satisfied with the people I’ve surrounded myself with.”

“I’ve got a staff of people that have, first of all, placed their country above their self-interests,” he said at the time. “These are good, hard- working, decent people. And we’ve dealt with a lot. We’ve dealt with a lot. We’ve dealt with war. We’ve dealt with recession. We’ve dealt with scandal. We’ve dealt with Katrina.

“I mean, they’ve had a lot on their plate. And I appreciate their performance and their hard work and they’ve got my confidence,” he said.

Bush said, “I’m satisfied with the people I’ve surrounded myself with. We’ve been a remarkably stable administration, and I think that’s good for the country.”

Raw Story says so:

According to one source close to the case, Rove is providing information on deleted emails, erased hard drives and other types of obstruction by staff and other officials in the Vice President’s office. Pentagon sources close to Rove confirmed this account.

Rove’s lawyer says, “There is no basis whatsoever to the matters you allege that Mr. Rove has related.”

Post re-natal depression: As the Bush administration continues its inexorable push toward an Ametrican theocracy, it appears that more and more of us — especially we “of an age” — are turning into born again Bible thumpers. At least that’s the finding of Ventura, Calif.-based Barna Group.

A recent survey by Barna found that 75 percent of senior pastors at U.S. Protestant churches consider their church to be “evangelical.” Barna says this is explained by the findings of his most recent national survey. In that study, 1,003 adults from the 48 continental states were randomly interviewed. The number of adults who could be classified as “born again Christians” based upon their beliefs (not on their use of that phrase to describe themselves) was 45 percent.

Barna defines “born again Christians” as “people who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.”

I’m sorry, but I find it very difficult to believe that nearly half of Americans can be described as born agains. But Barna’s historical numbers do support his trend:

In 1983 the number 31 percent; from 1992 through 2005, the percentage hovered in the 36 percent to 43 percent range. Barna attributes the increase to — you guessed it — a 16-point rise in rebirths in Jesus among us Baby Boomers since 1990. Barna says 53 percent of Boomers meet his born again criteria, surpassing the percentage of born again adults in the two preceding generations.

Here are some more Barna findings:

Other demographic comparisons indicate that women are 16 percent more likely than men to be born again. African-Americans are the ethnic group most likely to be born again (59 percent), while Hispanics were barely half as likely (32 percent). Residents of the South remain the most committed to Christ (57 percent were born again), while those in the West (33 percent) and Northeast (37 percent) were least committed.

The rest of the U.S. populace can be broken down into the following categories:
[…]

Saw this at 10,000 Monkeys and a Camera. (Click the graphic above to see a larger version.)

Sen. Napoli, in case you’re just tuning in, is one of the authors of South Dakota’s ban on abortion. In particular, he was a strong advocate of the ban having no exclusions for rape and incest, saying that “simple rape” — whatever that is — was not a sufficient cause for terminating a pregnancy.

We are on the receiving end of an economic diaspora out of Mexico. The only way to stop Mexican citizens from swarming across our borders is to attack the root cause of the calamity. Since the source of the disaster is the Mexican political system, which fails to provide jobs or social services for its citizens, the only way to solve the problem is by using the Bush Doctrine of Preemptive War.

That’s right. The only way we can stop work-starved Mexicans from coming to the United States is to invade Mexico, take over the government and fix the Mexican economic and political system so that it takes responsibility for its citizens who have no resources or prospects.

Mexican society today looks much like American society will look in 20 years if the Republicans stay in power: The country is run by a tiny, corrupt, uber-wealthy class of elites who allow the appearance of democracy to play out to appease the meager, mostly urban middle class. Meanwhile, millions of Mexican citizens live in the kind of poverty I remember around the Cherokee Indian Reservation in the Appalachians in the 1960s.

To be clear, I’m not advocating preemptive war with Mexico; I’m saying it is the only way we can stop the immigration. I oppose the Bush Doctrine, which as applied to the invasion of Iraq has led to what has to be the worst foreign policy blunder in U.S. history.

But all the other solutions on the table range from draconian to pie in the sky:

[…]

“I don’t even know, That is so not like me.”

GOP Rep. Katherine Harris’ bid to take the U.S. Senate seat held by Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson suffered another self-inflicted wound over the weekend:

Appearing at a gun show in Orlando, Harris said that Adam Goodman, her longtime media consultant, had told the St. Petersburg Times that he and chief strategist Ed Rollins were leaving the campaign.

The story, Harris said, was wrong.

“Ed is not leaving my campaign,” the Longboat Key Republican said. “Ed Rollins is very committed to my campaign.”

The two-term congresswoman, who is challenging Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, then accused Goodman of spreading the story.

“That article basically came from Adam,” Harris said, “and it was not accurate.”

Asked whether Goodman was still with the campaign, she said: “He is, is, uh . . . heh . . . no comment.”

Harris’ remarks were surprising, because Goodman has worked with Harris for years and is considered one of her closest advisers. The candidate’s words became puzzling when Harris phoned the Orlando Sentinel an hour later with a different story.

She said Goodman was still with the campaign and said “it was wrong” of her to say he leaked information.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” she said.

Harris could not explain the change or make clear why she had first refused to say whether Goodman was still working with her.

“I don’t even know,” she said. “That is so not like me.”

Ed Rollins is one of the very few Republican realists. He was Reagan’s campaign manager, but lately he’s been highly critical of the Bush team. I didn’t know he was working for Harris. That is rich. Here’s his take now:

“I’m still trying to help,” he said Saturday. “I’m going to try and make it work.”

Harris’ father died recently and a few weeks ago on Fox News, she told Sean Hannity that she was going to spend her entire $10 million inheritance on her senate campaign. But within a day or so, she retracted that statement. Now she says this about her 180:

“I guess, just because Sean and I were caught up in talking about my dad,” she said. “I didn’t quite realize it was coming out that way. I could have been more specific.”

It is safe to say the Harris campaign is FUBAR (Effed-Up Beyond All Repair). If she has any sense, she’ll put it out of its misery before the week is out.