Earlier this month, I got an e-mail from a UN aid worker in Chad who is working with refugees from the Darfur region of Sudan who fled to Chad to escape violence at home. I met Matthew Conway on a visit to a refugee camp along the desolate Chad-Sudan border in early September. The dismal situation is getting worse. ``We regret to report that the security situation throughout eastern Chad remains extremely precarious, forcing (UN workers) and partners to move in escorted convoys to many of the refugee camps,'' Conway wrote.
There is an ad campaign running in the U.S. aimed against President Bush, creating the impression the White House is not doing anything on Darfur. While there is always more that can be done, the Bush White House is engaged in trying to pull together a ``credible'' international force to send to Sudan.
Today, Tuesday, the president met with Andrew Natsios, the former USAID chief he tapped as special envoy to Sudan. It's clear that this is a situation the U.S. alone cannot influence. After the meeting, Bush talked once again about the need to have international partners in order to get a military force in the region. The Sudan government is resisting UN intervention and just kicked out the UN envoy in Khartoum.
``The United States is going to work with the international community to come up with a single plan on how to address this issue and save lives. And Andrew is going to work with other partners in peace, and they'll take that plan to the current government of Sudan,'' Bush said.
By Lynn Sweet
Sun-Times Washington Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON -- Federal and state prosecutors were asked Monday to investigate whether a staffer for U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk violated laws when she tried to get a prominent backer of Kirk's opponent, Democrat Dan Seals, to back down.
The request for a probe was made in letters sent to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and Cook County State's Attorney Richard Devine by Abner Mikva. As a Democrat, Mikva once represented the 10th Congressional District in the north suburbs -- where Kirk serves -- and is a former White House counsel and federal judge.
First Lady Laura Bush, on a campaign swing this week, touches down in Schaumburg this Thursday. (note to White House—that is burg, not berg, as written on her sked).
UPDATE On Wednesday, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) host a get-out-the-vote rally at DePaul U's Lincoln Park campus, 2 p.m. at the student center, 2250 N. Sheffield.
Give House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) the chance to speak his mind about House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and he'll take it, just as he did Sunday night during an interview with Fox's Sean Hannity. He reaffirmed his prediction the GOP will retain the House. However, he would not predict that he will be elected speaker again. Hastert has been definitive about his desire to stay on as Speaker.
``One election at a time,'' Hastert told Hannity.
Hannity chose not to ask Hastert about his testimony last week before the House ethics committee. Or Hastert's latest thoughts on the impact of the Foley page scandal.
``Working with Nancy, it's been all politics all of the time,'' said Hastert, interviewed from Aurora. Pelosi is likely to be speaker if the Dems win control of the House next week.
Potential Dem presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is on the West Coast portion of his book tour. The publicity over his new book proved so successful he moved up his timetable and put a 2008 White House bid in play. Here's an inside look at how the book tour is helping Obama build a national political infrastructure. Without organization, Obama will not be able to translate his popularity into presidential political primary power.
Republican David McSweeney, challenging Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.), started running a new television ad on Monday evening. It's misleading when it comes to portraying Bean's position on Social Security and a cheap shot when the spot talks about her not protecting "our values."
A spokesman for AARP, David Sloane, said McSweeney "twisted" Bean's response to an AARP election questionnaire and said McSweeney's spot amounted to a "scare tactic." Sloane said the AARP was mailing a letter to all of its members in the north suburban 8th Congressional District --some tens of thousands -- to "make clear" the McSweeney spot was a "mischaracterization."
BY LYNN SWEET Sun-Times Washington Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON -- A staffer for Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), in a threatening e-mail, tried to get the president of Tel Aviv University to pressure a prominent supporter of Democrat Dan Seals to back down.
The target of a July e-mail by Kirk district representative Caryn Garber was insurance magnate Robert M. Schrayer, who is the national chairman of the Tel Aviv University American Council and on the board of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) spent only a few hours before the House ethics panel on Tuesday, telling under oath what he knew when about the Mark Foley page scandal. Deputy chief of staff Mike Stokke is testifying Tuesday afternoon.
Emerging from the committees offices in the basement of the Capitol, Hastert called for a swift completion of the inquiry and said he answered all questions.
He called on the panel to determine ``who knew about the sexually explicit messages and when when they knew about it.''
Sean Hannity talked to Vice President Cheney this morning at the White House for his radio show--and asked him about Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) who on Sunday said he was mulling a 2008 White House run. That sets Obama up on a potential collision course with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who is also looking at 2008.
Cheney said Clinton could win. Obama is an ``attractive candidate,'' but `` people might want a little more experience,'' the vice president said.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) is testifying today before the House ethics committee, charged with trying to determine who knew what when in the Mark Foley page scandal. This blog broke the news on Sunday night that Hasterts' staffers and perhaps Hastert himself would be testifying this week.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has cranked up his domestic travel schedule since his Aug. 18-Sept. 3 Africa trip, with constant travel since his return. He's been out stumping for Democratic candidates--selling his new book--and now, himself as a potential 2008 White House candidate.
Number of states visited since becoming a senator in January, 2005: 30
Number of states visited in the past 30 days: 18
(some states more than once)
I wrote this blog item on Aug. 21, after Sen. Barack Obama, in South Africa, flinched when former Archbishop Desmond Tutu talked him up for president of the United States.
Obama, now open to a 2008 White House run, is not flinching anymore.
--Lynn Sweet
original headline Tutu: Touts Obama for president
Former Archbishop Desmond Tutu just met with Sen. Barack Obama at his office in a drab office mall outside of Cape Town.
He volunteered that Obama would make a good president.
Obama's camp has given up dousing talk of a White House run.
Tutu bringing up Obama's future was extremely off message.
"You are going to be a very credible presidential candidate," the impish Tutu cackled.
Obama flinched. "Oh no, don't do that."
"Fortunately, because he has my complexion, we can't see that he is blushing," Tutu said.
As the two headed to a private meeting, Tutu was asked why he was high on Obama's prospects.
"People are looking for leaders of whom they could be proud."
A potential central figure in the Mark Foley scandal, Scott Palmer, chief of staff for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and his attorney entered the closed doors of the House ethics committee in the basement of the Capitol near 2 p.m. eastern time on Monday to testify. Hastert is also expected to talk to the investigative panel--and it could be as early as Tuesday.
Palmer's lawyer is Scott L. Fredericksen, a partner with Foley & Lardner who specializes in white collar defense. Palmer has barely been heard from--only to issue a terse statement of denial after former Foley chief of staff Krik Fordham said Palmer and others close to Hastert knew the Florida lawmaker had a problem with pages years before it surfaced in November, 2005.
Obama in '08? He's thinking about it\
October 23, 2006
BY LYNN SWEET Sun-Times Columnist
A few days ago, Sen. Barack Obama seemed to promise Oprah she would get the news first, as if a decision to make a run for president comes all at once. It does not.
It actually is an incremental process and on NBC's "Meet the Press," Obama said Sunday he is mulling a 2008 presidential run.
Obama told Tim Russert that he had "thought about the possibility'' of a 2008 bid. Obama walked away from the flat denial of interest in being on the 2008 ticket that he had made on the same show on Jan. 22.
The softball treatment the press has given Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was the topic on Sunday's edition of ``Reliable Sources'' on CNN hosted by Howard Kurtz.
In Washington, your Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet and Clarence Page of the Trib commented on the Obama treatment.
Kurtz sets up the discussion thus: "Does the senator walk on water, or have the media gone off the deep end?"
Clarence and I were billed as "Veteran Chicago reporters on the media's amazing swoon over Senator Barack Obama."
The House ethics committee investigation of the House page program--in the wake of the Mark Foley page sex scandal--this week is poised to hear testimony from key staffers of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and perhaps the speaker himself.
The testimony is crucial in determining if the speaker's team first learned of Foley's ``overly friendly'' overtures to pages in November, 2005--as the speaker claims--or years earlier, as a former Foley chief of staff claimed. A special investigative subcommittee of the panel, officially named the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct started work on Oct. 4.
Key Hastert staffers: Chief of Staff Scott Palmer; Deputy Chief of Staff Mike Stokke and Ted Van Der Meid, chief in-house counsel.
