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Lynn Sweet: September 2006 Archives

September 2006 Archives


Republicans are trying to portray Democrats as weak on national security. On Saturday, 6th CD Dem House nominee Tammy Duckworth--a wounded Iraq war vet--delivers the Dems national reply to President Bush's regular Sunday radio address. She records it on Friday in Chicago, taking on a higher profile.

She'll be talking about national security.

Before he described the secret details of the deal he made with Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, Rep. Rahm Emanuel said, "God willing, there are no reporters in here.''

Emanuel's prayers were not answered.

I was there.

Homesick Chicagoans who get invited--or who crash--the city's annual Taste of Chicago in Washington get a chance to refresh their accents and pack in some of the town's high-calorie treats.

Mayor Daley flies to Washington today for the Taste. The Illinois Delegation--headed by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and Senators Dick Durbin and Barack Obama are listed as hosts.

Thursday, Daley tries to get Midwest lawmakers on board for city Olympic bid.

Famous Obama can only manage a ``drop by'' the event.

Relations are frayed in the delegation....

click below to find out what the heck I'm talking about

CORRECTION
I made a mistake. I paraphrased Joe Shoemaker, Durbin's press secretary and I made an error. I should have said Shoemaker said the problem is Hastert can't control House Republicans. Instead, I wrote Senate Republicans, when I intended to write House Republicans. I goofed. The column now reflects the correction. Shoemaker's whole point was that it is Hastert who can't wield his power among his House Republicans.

column starts here

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) is lobbing grenades at Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) over something in which there is no disagreement: the need to beef up judicial security in the wake of the murders of the mother and husband of U.S. District Court Judge Joan Lefkow at her North Side home.

Oprah Winfrey is telling some fellow with a web site touting her for president to shut it down and focus on Sen. Barack Obama instead.

Winfrey talks about how Obama should run on Larry King tonight She gave the interview to tout the launch of her radio enterprise on XM. Obama tapes a show with Oprah on or about Oct. 3 to launch his new book. The show will run closer-or possibly on--the Oct. 17 launch date of his new book.


This home town nugget from Winfrey--who has a home on the Mag Mile in Chicago and in California-- ``I'm very much an Illinoisan.''

Fox News is reporting on Monday afternoon that the video of former President Clinton chewing out Chris Wallace during an interview on Sunday is topping the most-viewed list. Was Clinton’s rage genuice but the decibel level calculated? Wallace did not think he was out of line.

No matter, the Dems see an advantage to levergering Dem animosity towards ``fair and balanced’’ Fox to their advantage.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is using the interview as a rallying cry to raise money. Pressing on national security is part of the Democratic strategy for victory in November.
Dean’s e-mail appeal comes with a link to YouTube.com to the segment. ``Here's the meat of the Fox News interview with President Clinton, where he's had enough of the right-wing revisionist history from the propaganda machine,’’ Dean writes in the set-up.

The traveling White House press corps, in Greenwich, Ct. today, is pressing White House press secretary Tony Snow to disclose details about President Bush's secret to the public fundraising. Snow is resisting giving and says don't worry, there will be plenty of ``open events.'' That is not the point.

Bush is on a list of public officials who refuse to disclose details about who helps them raise political money. The argument that no information can be given out about events held in private homes--even after the fact--is just an excuse given to keep big donors happy. That's what major contributors and fund-raisings in both parties have in common. They like to operate in secret. And the money-hungry politicians don't want to upset their donors.

Bush won't reveals inconvenient details about his fundraising. Neither with Sen. Barack Obama nor Rep. Rahm Emanuel. But at least the president consistently puts the events on his public schedule, something Obama and Emanuel refuse to do.


click below for details

President Bush and Vice President Cheney are out raising campaign money today on Midwest swings.

click for details.

The U.S. is ``getting better'' in executing the Iraq war, said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) offering an unvarnished assessment on Sunday's "CBS News Face the Nation'' with moderator Bob Schieffer and John Harris, National Political Editor, Washington Post.

McCain summary on Iraq to date: Tactics flawed, not enough troops, underestimating the reconstruction challenges, overextending the National Guard.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow reflected over a Thursday breakfast with reporters—about 50 of them—that he is the only presidential spokesman who has ever been a radio, television and print journalist.

Seated before an assortment of tape recorders plopped near his plate, Snow, after talking awhile, notice that one tape ran out, something a working reporter would care about.

The lumbering old fashioned machine that turned off ith a loud click was mine. With a flourish, Snow made a point of taking out the tape cassette, flipping it over and punching it back on. Just a service he provides.

Unlike the regular White House briefings, the reporters at the breakfast, sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, shot Snow some questions off the main news stories of the day—about how he works, his sources and methods. The session started with a polite complaint—that Snow in his briefings and the president always call on the same people—from the top tier news organizations who get reserved prime seats in the first two rows, no matter what. Snow said it was a``legitimate complaint’’ (of course it is!) said is was a ``problem’’ and said he would encourage the president to spread it around.

Snow has a Chicago connection: he attended grad school at the University of Chicago but never completed a degree.

On to more:

Snow’s operating philosophy: ``If we spin you, we die.’’

Just a few week ago, in a refugee camp in a dry, bare, remote section of eastern Chad, people from the Darfur region of Sudan -- men in white robes, women dressed in the brightest of colors -- who fled across the border to escape death were telling Sen. Barack Obama they wanted to go home.

Sometimes words got lost as translators switched from English to French to Arabic and back again in the sandy-walled building where the men and women sat apart.

In a very long New Yorker profile of President Bill Clinton- titled ``Bill Clinton's quest to save the world, reclaim his legacy-and elect his wife'' by writer David Remnick, the former president at one point muses on presidential politics--and on the prospects of Sen. Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat.

click below for excerpt where Clinton praises Obama but warns him about timing.

This comes as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the New York Democrat, is gearing up a 2008 presidential run, with her campaign to come out from behind the shadows after she wins, as expected, a second term in November.

For now, she is the only top tier 2008 Democratic White House potential candidate. If Obama got in---that changes the dynamic. In some ways, because of Obama's surging stature--Obama is Sen. Clinton's biggest possible rival.

Yes that's a lot of ifs....

Let's take these two concepts -- the positive power of the blogs and the sense that people have a right to know about their government -- and see if there is a way to wrangle even more transparency into the federal system.


Many of the public figures I cover resist giving out even routine scheduling information -- especially on the political side of their work, even after events have occurred. Their empowered staffers, acting in the names of their bosses, often treat requests for a schedule with a range of non-responses -- from imperial scorn to silence to collegial replies so artfully vague they are useless. Now, a government watchdog group, the Sunlight Foundation, is offering a bounty of $1,000 to any person -- any self-made activist -- who can get a member of Congress to sign a pledge stating simply they will make public matters relating to their work. The bounty is $250 for getting the signature of a congressional candidate.

click below for details....

Here's the latest from Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), taking another step towards a mayoral run......

WASHINGTON -- In his new book, dedicated to his mother and maternal grandmother -- the women "who raised me" -- Sen. Barack Obama accuses fellow Democrats of being "confused" as the Democratic Party "has become the party of reaction."

He also relates how during a meeting with President Bush he found the president seemingly transformed in one sitting as Bush's "easy affability" over a breakfast "was replaced by an almost messianic certainty" as the encounter progressed.

President Bush taps former USAID chief Andrew Natsios as special envoy for Darfur.

CLICK FOR BUSH UN SPEECH....

On the eve of his Tuesday speech to the UN---and as the window to save residents of the Darfur region of Sudan from a genocide is closing--President Bush is poised to name a Special Envoy to try to find a way to send a peacekeeping force to the country, CNN and Reuters are reporting.

African Union troops loose their mandate to serve in Sudan on Sep