Blue Radar

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

• CONGRESS Congresswoman Jo Ann Davis (R-VA) passed away on Saturday at her home in Gloucester, Virginia.  Davis, 57-years-old, lost her battle with breast cancer.  She served four terms in the US House of Representatives.
• CONGRESS Watergate co-leaker Carl Bernstein said this weekend that compared to the Nixon era, the Congress has done an inadequate job of conducting oversight.  "The difference with today is that the system did its job," Bernstein said. "The pressdid its job. The court did its job. The Senate committee did its job.  There’s been great reporting on thispresident. But there’s been no oversight. We have a Democratic Congressnow and there’s still no oversight."
• FOREIGN POLICY The United States helped convince Israel not to launch a preemptive strike on Syria: "The September Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear site in Syriahad been in the works for months, ABC News has learned, and was delayedonly at the strong urging of the United States."
• SCANDAL Even though Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) is still refusing to resign, Idaho's Republican Lieutenant Governor Jim Risch plans to run for his Senate seat.
• SCANDAL Federal prosecutors are once again setting their sights on baseball star Barry Bonds for his use of illegal steroids.  "Sources familiar with the investigation intoperjury and tax evasion charges against the all-time home run leadertold the Daily News that the U.S. Attorney's office in San Franciscoremains determined to indict Bonds by the time the grand jury expiresin January," reports the NY Daily News.
• MEDIA Don Imus will be back on the air in December.  A contract with WABC will be finalized within the next week.
• MEDIA On Friday night, Bill O'Reilly said that all the members of the media at the daily White House press briefings needed to be wiped out.  "You can combine how I deal with cancer with how I deal with the White House press corps," O'Reilly began.  "Because they're both insidious, invasive.  They both have to be wiped out."  (Sounds a little like fascism to me, Bill.)
• 2008 ELECTION/SENATE The Republican Party is preparing for a massive landslide in the US Senate in 2008.  According to Idaho Governor Butch Otter, "We’ve now got five Republicans [retiring or resigning], and I guessthere’s a few more that may make a statement, from what [SenateMinority Leader] Mitch McConnell’s told me. So there’s more changes tobe made there. Plus the fact that there are twice as many Republicansthat are up for re-election as there are Democrats. So there’s going tobe some significant change."
• 2008 ELECTION/PRESIDENTIAL On Saturday, presidential candidate Barack Obama accused private contractors of endangering US soldiers in Iraq.  "You've got young men and women signing up to serve, willing tospill blood for America," Obama said. "How could they be treated less well thanprivate contractors?  And these private contractors, they go out and they're sprayingbullets and hitting civilians and that makes it more dangerous for ourtroops."
• 2008 ELECTION/PRESIDENTIAL Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo says he favors an amendment that would ban same-sex marriage.

If we left something out, it's because we either wrote about ityesterday or are scheduled to do so in an individual post later today. Otherwise, feel free to add any stories in the commentbox.

Comments

[granny]

"Watergate co-leaker Carl Bernstein".

Co-leaker?

That just does not decribe the men or the job at all. It's media-speak, Fox News-ism.

Those two guys, and their newspaper super structure blew the lid off the Nixon Whitehouse. They didn't "leak", they reported; and reported, and reported, and stood up, and kept the culprits' backs to the wall, and the facts rolling out. They did precisely what this Congress, and this press (with some exceptions) is failing to do now, over and over again.

Yes, I am ticked about it, because I was already grumped over what I have begun to feel is the over abundance of hypothesizing, poll interpreting and analysis, essentially tilted toward who's losing, or who's going to lose.

This morning's IA-08 story for example. It's not that it's not an interesting story. But essentially so negative, and sort of implicit rather than explicit in that vein.

WHY was Edward's performance this morning so marginal? WHY do we think Obama had gone nowhere? WHY do we think Hillary is doing so well in view of who and what she appears to really be representing?

- especially in view of what appears to be this blog's general dislike for her. Why aren't we hearing more about why we think she's a poor choice? We can talk about these candidates without making an endorsement.

The contributions Paul Loeb has made are an example of the kind of "thinking out loud" that I feel would be of more value toward supporting a beneficial outcome to this process of nominination/election. His stuff is great, and I hope he doesn't go away just because he's not getting comments.

We seem to be speaking in loser terms, not in encouragement terms, ways to improve terms.

These campaigns have people who read these blogs. Undecided voters read these blogs.What are we "giving" them? How are we helping?

If the truth is that it really is ALL and ONLY about money - let's talk about that, and what's wrong with it. Let's just go ahead and say, "we're not going to get a candidate who stands for the changes we really want to see because money is going to prevent it" ...

If the polls are going to be cited as "the way it is" let's talk about how the questions are asked. What the polls are reflecting in human terms.

Let's talk about how many decades it is really going to take to repair the damage that this administration has inflicted here and around the world. What the real work ahead is, and who we think is equipped to begin it - no single two term candidate can possibly "repair" the damage that has been done. It's not just about the war,the middle East, the climate, oil ... the "catch words". What about how we're going to help raise, and support and educate the children of the men and women who have been sent into this ghastly quarmire and come back destroyed, or not come back at all? How are we going to provide for them so that they can go forward as strong well informed capable citizens who will contribute to the community/society, not enter it angry and damaged.

I'm just not happy about this abbreviated way we all seem to be looking at this picture. In fact, the abbreviated way life is looked at these days...

You guys, editors and writers, have volumes of information and insight and ideas.
It's clear in responses to comments -

~ So back to Carl Bernstein: that abbreviated characterization of him is precisely an example of what I'm talking about. It's not only not accurate, it's leading & insufficient, and indicative of a weak and watered down memory and/or understanding of a past we could do well to learn from.