Strange Days

To get a feel for the strange goings ons in Washington lately, the essential oddness of what is said and done, we need to look no further than the past ten days.

Within this short span of time (or is ten days now considered a lifetime in politics?) the administration went from pushing a liberal pro-immigrant policy to a 'send in the National Guard to the border'policy. My first reaction was, 'is there not a problem that Bush won't send the military to solve?' and 'what National Guard?'

It turns out the troops are being sent not to do any guarding, but to watch the shop so the border patrol can crack heads. Come again? So I guess we have enough border patrol as is, but they're all stuck in their cubicles until the Guard rescues them from office bondage.

Apparently this would be a short-term solution. How short term? I'd guess through about November of '06. Hell, if I were in the Guard I'd much rather go down to the border and make coffee and copies for a few months than dodge IED's in Iraq. Those may be the kind of duties Bush had in mind when he signed up for his strange interlude in the Guard.

And just in case the National Guard can't get the job done, Bush will turn to some old friends to help pitch in.

The Senate, which had been pursuing a more moderate bill than the draconian house, is now pushing the constructions of a giant wall on the Mexican border. Ooh, how Berlin! We'll turn to Matthew Yglesias for why this is lunacy.

McCain gave a good commencement speech this weekend at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. This speech, of course, is part of McCain's pre primary warmup where he sees just how right wing he can get. He's popular among the moderates and liberals, but he needs the right to get the nomination.

This is all well and good (and I would argue not that cynical as McCain is essentially a conservative and this maverick business has more to do with his personality) but liberals/moderates should take a sober look at the figure they've wrapped their arms around. Richard Cohen and Michael Kinsley get the ball rolling. Kinsley in particular captures the oddity of a candidate trying to win over voters who agree with him, and hold on to those who don't.

Sen. Pat Roberts kicked off the confirmation hearings of CIA nominee Michael Hayden with this doozy "I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment and civil liberties. But you have no civil liberties if you are dead,’ Roberts said.” - Lawrence Journal World.

Ahh. This reminds me of the recent senate debate over the Patriot Act when John Cornyn spat the Roberts line only to be met with Russ Feingold's historical retort "give me liberty or give me death."

Here's another oddity: "Even baby Jesus accepted gifts and I don't believe it corrupted him." - Rep. Drew Saunders, D-Mecklenburg, in support of an amendment to the legislative ethics bill that lowers the monetary threshold on gifts lawmakers may receive from neighbors and state employees. (The Charlotte Observer)

Some more noise on the CIA leak case. Jason Leopold writes that Rove has been indicted already, but this seems unlikely. We do know that the grand jury has been busy and that Fitzgerald has spent a huge amount of time in Robert Luskin's (Rove's attorney) office. MSNBC reporter David Shuster goes out on a limb and predicts Rove will be indicted. All of this activity is about a week old and nothing concrete has emerged yet.

But in the rumor department, it looks like former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is either a target of the leak investigation, or a major witness against Rove.

Trivia question for foreign policy zealots out there. What major post was Bobby Ray Inman nominated for by Bill Clinton? Why did that nomination go down in flames?

And the wiretapping is just warming up.

Send in the national guard to protect us from the Mexicans! Send in the man in charge of executing warrantless domestic spying to head the CIA!

Send in the clowns.