Blue Radar

As I post each morning, here are some of the political stories thatmight not be worthy of their own posts, but are nonetheless newsworthy:

• ARG: President Bush job approval at 25%.  71% disapprove.
• Washington Post: 55% trust the Democrats in Congress to do a better job handling Iraq, while 32% trust Bush.
• The House Judiciary Committee will vote on Wednesday whether to hold White House officials Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton in criminal contempt for refusing to testify about the sudden firing of nine federal prosecutors.
• According to Stephen Hayes' new book about the Vice President, Dick Cheney temporarily served as Ted Kennedy's Press Secretary.  Cheney lasted one day on the job.
• Basic foods now cost 21% more worldwide than they did in 2005, which is making it harder for relief organizations to give aid.
• The AKP sweep of the Turkish elections on Sunday has major implications for the Middle East.  The party, along with the country itself, is drifting away from secularism.  Lee Hudson Teslik explains what the results of the Turkish election will mean for the US and Iraq.
• The number of Americans that think going into Iraq was a good idea has risen seven percent since May, reveals a CBS Poll.  In May, 35% said invading Iraq was the right thing to do.  Now 42% feel that way.
• Here is the CNN-Youtube Debate Transcript.
• GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is refusing to apologize for a campaign sign that read, "No to Osama, Obama and Chelsea’s Moma."
• In the second quarter of 2007, 39% of Barack Obama's donors contributed the maximum amount of $2,300, while 58% of Clinton's donors did.  This is huge for Obama in the long-run, as Josephine Hearn notes, because "Obama could return to many of the same contributors for more money."
• SurveyUSA: 39% believed Hillary Clinton won the debate.  In second place was Obama with 15%.
• GOP presidential candidate Duncan Hunter criticized Bill Richardson for saying that Mexican smugglers will find ways around a ten foot wall, such as building ladders and digging underneath.  "That’s a simplistic statement that hasn’t proven to work for the smugglers in the San Diego region," Hunter claimed during a meeting with the Des Moines Register.

If we left anything out, feel free to add any stories in the commentbox.