Midday open thread

I haven't been too impressed with what all those "experienced" people in Washington have delivered.

"They have tunnel vision," DLC founder Al From said of his fellow Democrats {...}

"Presidents are elected in the middle and they are elected by being bigger than their party. Neither parties' activists alone can elect somebody president," From said in a telephone interview from his Washington office. "Democrats have a long history of nominating people, including people who have lost badly. The challenge for Democrats is to nominate somebody who can win the election." [...]

"It's sort of like you play on one end of field to win the nomination," From said, "but if you want to win the game, you've got to play on both ends."

Feinstein:  I'm asking what the total number were?

Gonzales:  Well, certainly Mr. Cummins was asked to leave, Mr. Graves (??) was asked to leave.  I'm not aware, sitting here today, of any other U.S. Attorney who was asked to leave, except there were some instances where people were asked to leave, quite frankly, there was legitimate cause.

Feinstein:  So you're saying these were asked to leave because the cause was not legitimate?

Gonzales:  No, what I'm saying is wrongdoing. Misconduct. There may have been, in fact I'm sure there were others...

Feinstein:  What kind of misconduct?

Gonzales:  For, and I'm not suggesting any of this conduct happened, but for example, an inappropriate relationship, taking action that you have a direct conflict of interest, helping out a buddy. Those kind
of, something like that I would say would constitute misconduct.  And there...

Feinstein:  Is that, were those specific things involved in any U.S. Attorney that was terminated?

Gonzales:  No.

"I'm hearing signals. They (Republicans) are trying to work out a deal where we leave 70,000 troops over there ... That's the White House telling them to do that, I'm convinced," he told reporters.

"I'm hoping there will be an agreement between Democrats and Republicans and the Senate and the House and the White House and I think you'll see that happen. I think you'll see that happen by September, October," he said.

The House of Representatives has voted three times this year for timetables to end U.S. involvement in the Iraq war, but similar provisions have stalled in the more closely divided Senate amid strong resistance from the White House.

Murtha said pressure from liberal Democrats in the House could still force a pullout deadline to be added to his proposal.

"I know they get so much pressure from the public. The public wants us the hell out of there," he said.

But he hoped to get Republicans on side who don't want to telegraph the final U.S. departure date to enemies attacking U.S. troops in Iraq.

The White House doesn't want to pull out. That would be admitting defeat. Same goes with the vast majority of Congressional Republicans.