With James Comey likely to be tapped to be the next FBI Director, The Fix rightly calls his May 2007 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee perhaps the most riveting ever.
It’s definitely worth watching.
Chafee Switch is a New England Trend
The Boston Globe notes Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s (R-RI) party switch is part of a regional trend.
“The frequency of incumbents leaving their longtime parties – often accompanied by the pat explanation that their parties have, in fact, left them – reflects the region’s decades-long leftward trend and the collapse of the Republican Party as an electoral force in what was once fertile territory.”
The Week: Why Chafee is becoming a Democrat.
Margolies Will Run for Congress Again
“After 20 years, the congresswoman whose name became shorthand for losing your seat over a single vote is looking to return to Capitol Hill,” the Washington Post reports.
“Marjorie Margolies is planning to run for Pennsylvania’s 13th House District seat… As a freshman in 1993, Margolies (then Margolies-Mezvinsky) was convinced by Democrats to switch her vote and save President Bill Clinton’s budget. On the night of the vote, Republicans taunted her from the aisles, predicting that she would lose her conservative district. They were right.”
Camelot’s Court
Coming ahead of the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination: Camelot’s Court: Inside the Kennedy White House by Robert Dallek.
Also forthcoming: The Kennedy Half-Century by Larry J. Sabato and Dallas 1963 by Bill Minutaglio and Steven Davis.
Is the New Weiner the Same as the Old Weiner?
Politico: “The new Anthony Weiner bears an uncanny resemblance to the pugnacious, hard-charging Anthony Weiner of old. The fallen congressman’s comeback attempt prompted a natural question: Was this a bid for personal and professional redemption — or an expression of the narcissism that got him in trouble in the first place? There may never be a clear answer.”
Said Weiner: “I will leave it to you to analyze the old versus the new, but to me my views on these things haven’t changed… I would think a much worse critique would be if somebody appeared, if I appeared, to be a different person than the one I was. This is who I am.”
News Organizations Decline Meeting with Holder
Attorney General Eric Holder’s “plans to sit down with media representatives to discuss guidelines for handling investigations into leaks to the news media have run into trouble,” CNN reports.
The New York Times, the Associated Press and CNN will all decline the invitation unless its on-the-record.
Andrew Sulivan: “It was no doubt meant as an act of reconciliation and dialogue; but it
backfired, and rightly so. If my emails had been searched by the DOJ,
I’d be eager to talk to the man who authorized, in the case of James
Rosen, a potentially criminal warrant. But I’d want that talk to be
open, clear and accountable. To try to address the question of secret government intrusion into the press in secret is like something out of a John Le Carre novel.”
Romney Favors Ryan in 2016
Ann Romney told CBS News that she and her husband back Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) in the 2016 presidential race.
Said Romney: “Mitt and I are always very, very partial to Paul Ryan,” while adding that “we don’t even know if he’s going to run.”
Jeb Bush Doesn’t Agree with His Mother
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) said “he’s undecided about running for president but didn’t appear to agree with his mother that enough members of their family have occupied the White House,” the AP reports.
Said Bush: “What can I tell you? All I can say is we all have mothers, right? She is totally liberated, and God bless her.”
Bush said he needs another year before making his decision.
Thune Warns About GOP Infighting
Sen. John Thune (R-SD) told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader that GOP infighting “could hurt Republicans at the ballot box, as well as impeding their legislative agendas once elected.”
Said Thune: “When Republicans end up going to war with Republicans, it often leads to Democrats getting elected.”
Nonetheless, Thune said he’s not going to discourage Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD) from challenging former South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds (R) in the 2014 U.S. Senate race.
Cruz Sees New Generation Leading Conservatives
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told a Republican fundraiser “to remain optimistic about the country’s future because a new generation of leaders — ‘the children of Reagan’ — have taken over to lead the fight for conservatives,” NBC News reports.
Said Cruz: “If you sit back and you list who are the brightest stars in the Republican Party, who are the most effective advocates for free-market principles, you come up with names like Marco Rubio, like Mike Lee, like Rand Paul, like Pat Toomey, like Scott Walker.”
He added: “You have to go back to World War II to see such a transformation of the
people leading the fight, leading the argument for conservative
principles, being an entirely new generation of leaders stepping forward.”
Voters See IRS Probe as Most Important
A new Quinnipiac poll finds that of the three controversies surround the White House — Benghazi, IRS targeting and seizing reporter phone records — 44% of voters see the IRS probe as the most important, with 24% citing Benghazi and 15% picking the AP records seizure.
But voters say 73% to22% that dealing with the economy and unemployment is a higher priority than investigating these three issues.
Quote of the Day
“We’ve got a politics that’s stuck right now. And the reason it’s stuck
is because people spend more time thinking about the next election than
they do thinking about the next generation.”
— President Obama, quoted by Reuters, at a fundraiser for House Democrats.
Brown Continues Solid Approval Ratings in California
A new Public Policy Institute of California poll finds 48% of voters approve of Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) job performance while just 36% disapprove
Georgia Democratic Party Chief Steps Down
Georgia Democratic Party Chairman Mike Barton said that he “would resign amid mounting legal problems and growing pushback from fellow Democrats who feared his leadership could complicate the party’s comeback bid,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
Berlon “had vowed to serve out the remaining two years of his four-year term after a trying month in which he was suspended by the State Bar of Georgia, reprimanded by Georgia’s top court and sued by a former client.”
Kirk’s Proposal Called ‘Elitist White Boy Solution’
Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) was highly critical of a proposal by Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) for mass arrests of 18,000 Gangster Disciples, telling the Chicago Sun-Times that Kirk’s approach is “headline grabbing” and an “upper-middle-class, elitist white boy solution to a problem he knows nothing about.”
“One of Kirk’s top priorities is targeting gangs; he has been meeting with law enforcement officials to devise a plan to execute the mass arrests.”
Rob Lowe as JFK
Rob Lowe will play President John F. Kennedy in National Geographic’s telepic Killing Kennedy, Variety reports.
“Based on a book by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, Killing Kennedy centers on the assassination of JFK and will debut later this year, timed with the 50th anniversary of the prez’s death.”
Petraeus Lands at Private Equity Firm
David Petraeus, the former U.S. Army general who resigned last year as Central Intelligence Agency chief, is rebooting his career with KKR & Co., the giant private-equity firm, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Petraeus “instantly becomes one of the most recognizable faces at KKR. A former four-star general who led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Petraeus has traveled the world and knows military, economic and political leaders. Those connections could help KKR land deals in some foreign countries where the firm has less experience and better evaluate the risks and rewards of offbeat investments.”
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“I’ve never understood the allure of putting your name on a building that was built with taxpayers’ money.”
— Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), quoted by the Washington Post.
