The Washington Times reports on its front page this morning that a pair of State Department employees were fired recently and a third was "disciplined" for "improperly accessing electronic personal data" on Sen. Barack Obama. The employees "used their authorized computer network access to look up files within the department's consular affairs section, which processes and stores passport information, and read Mr. Obama's passport application and other records, in violation of department privacy rules." The AP reports State Department spokesman Sean McCormack "said the department itself detected the instances of 'imprudent curiosity,' which occurred separately on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14. He would not release the names of those who were fired and disciplined."
The Washington Post reports Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement, "This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years. ... This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach."
USA Today notes "the disclosure recalled an episode late in the 1992 presidential campaign when an assistant secretary of State was fired for a search of Bill Clinton's passport files. After an investigation, State Department Inspector General Sherman Funk said that breach was made in an attempt to 'influence the outcome of a presidential election.'"
The New York Times reports this morning that the negotiations over a second Michigan primary collapsed yesterday, and the state "must find some new way to comply with party delegate-selection rules or be locked out of the national convention in August." The AP adds that as negotiations collapsed, "a fresh dispute broke out between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton over the fate of the state's 156 national convention delegates." The Obama campaign "said a fair resolution would be to split them evenly with Clinton," while the Clinton campaign "instantly rejected the idea and said they would consider a mail-in primary - even though Obama has raised concerns about the security of a vote by mail organized so quickly."
The Washington Post called the breakdown of negotiations "a potentially serious blow to...Clinton's bid for the White House. ... Without the Michigan and Florida delegates, Clinton's odds grow longer." The Post notes that the Clinton campaign "took the opportunity to slam Obama. 'When it comes to the Michigan and Florida primaries, Senator Obama seems to only be capable of saying no: No to honoring the January elections, no to holding a new primary vote, no to a vote by mail,' spokesman Phil Singer said in a statement. 'It is unacceptable to disenfranchise the voters who participated in January, and if Senator Obama allows that to happen, there will be implications for Democrats in the general election.'"
Sign up here to get the US News Political Bulletin emailed to you each morning at 8 a.m.
ABC World News reported, "In the two days since Barack Obama delivered his speech about race, some two million people have watched it on YouTube alone. Some way watch it for inspiration, political opponents may be watching it for fodder to use in the campaign against him." ABC added Obama "wanted to have a national conversation about race. Well, he's getting one. Hillary Clinton's campaign seems to be using the inflammatory comments of Obama's minister Jeremiah Wright to make the argument to party insiders, or superdelegates, that Obama has too much baggage to win in November, as she seemed to acknowledge today."
Wright Attended Clinton White House Event The Politico's Ben Smith, under a 1998 photo of former president Bill Clinton and Reverend Jeremiah Wright shaking hands at the White House, writes, "The recent coverage of...Wright has often cast him as a marginal, almost fringe figure, but Trinity Church is a major Chicago institution, and Wright has long been a prominent pastor on the American scene. And an anonymous blog set up to defend his church offers some compelling photographic evidence of this: A photograph of Wright and President Clinton, which it says was taken on September 11, 1998 -- the date of a White House gathering for religious leaders. Hillary Clinton, according to her recently-released schedule for the day, was present at the gathering."
The New York Times reports that the Obama campaign provided it with the picture first linked to by The Politico's Smith. The Times notes the photo was taken at a "breakfast meeting with religious leaders just hours before the Starr report on the Monica Lewinsky scandal was made public. The Obama campaign also provided a letter Mr. Clinton sent to Mr. Wright the next month thanking Mr. Wright for a 'kind message' and saying he was touched by his prayers."
A new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll shows Sen. Hillary Clinton outperforming Sen. Barack Obama against Sen. John McCain. The poll, which surveyed 900 registered voters, shows Clinton topping McCain 46%-43%, but McCain leading Clinton 44%-43%.
Sen. John McCain continued his international tour yesterday, meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London. USA Today reports McCain "thanked Britain for its support in Iraq and for 'the enormous service and sacrifice' that its military men and women have made there and in Afghanistan. He acknowledged that Britons, along with Americans, were sometimes 'frustrated by our lack of progress' in Iraq but insisted the situation had 'improved dramatically' in the last year."
The AP reports Sen. John McCain "raised $11 million in February and ended it with $8 million in the bank," according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission. McCain also paid off the $4 million personal loan "that had become the focus of a stalemate between his campaign and the FEC." The AP says the February total "marked a second month of solid fundraising...but it still lagged significantly behind the prodigious amounts" raised by Sens. Obama and Clinton. Obama "has said he raised $55 million and Clinton has said she raised $35 million for the month."
Sign up here to get the US News Political Bulletin emailed to you each morning at 8 a.m.
Top
In a front-page story titled "Slump Moves From Wall St. To Main St.," the New York Times reports "the broadening of the slowdown, the plunge in home prices and near-paralysis in the financial system are fueling worries that what most economists now see as an inevitable recession could end up being especially painful." In fact, "some economists fear it will last longer and inflict more bite on workers and businesses than the last two recessions, which gripped the economy in 2001 and for eight months straddling 1990 and 1991. This time, these experts say, a recession in which economic activity falls over a sustained period and joblessness rises across the board could even persist into next year." The Washington Post, meanwhile, runs a front-page story titled "Inflation Hits The Poor Hardest," in which it says inflation is "walloping Americans with low and moderate incomes as the prices of staples have soared far faster than those of luxuries. ... An analysis of government data by The Washington Post found that prices have risen 9.2 percent since 2006 for the groceries, gasoline, health care and other basics that a middle-income American family has little choice but to consume. That would cost such a family, which made $45,000 on average in 2006, an extra $972 per year."
NBC Nightly News noted "another sign of weakness" as "22,000 more Americans applied for first time unemployment benefits -- last week alone -- than the week before bringing the total number to 378,000." According to NBC, "That's more proof of the struggling labor market," and "just the latest in a series of developments that have rattled the engine that drives the US economy, that would be us consumers." Moreover, the AP reports that the Conference Board reported its index of leading economic indicators "fell in February for the fifth consecutive month. The index, which is designed to forecast where the nation's economy is headed in the next three to six months, dipped 0.3 percent to 135.0 in February after slumping 0.4 percent the month before."
Under the headline "Can US Avert A Japan-style Economic Bust?," the Christian Science Monitor reports, "For US policymakers, Japan is the case study in what not to do when a credit bubble is followed by a real estate bust. Regulatory delay resulted in a 'lost decade' of economic stagnation there." In a column titled "Partying Like It's 1929," the New York Times' Paul Krugman raises the specter of the Great Depression, writing, "Contrary to popular belief, the stock market crash of 1929 wasn't the defining moment of the Great Depression. What turned an ordinary recession into a civilization-threatening slump was the wave of bank runs that swept across America in 1930 and 1931. ... As the decades passed, however, that lesson was forgotten -- and now we're relearning it, the hard way."
Commodities Dip The CBS Evening News noted that "for the first time in two weeks, oil fell below $100 a barrel today. It closed at $101.84, that's down more than eight dollars for the week. Gold is down as well. It closed today at $920, an ounce down $114 from Monday's record high." USA Today /Bloomberg News, under the headline "Prospect Of Slower Growth Slams Commodity Prices," says yesterday's "plunge" capped "the biggest weekly drop in five decades, on speculation that slower global economic growth will curb demand for energy, metals and grains."
Stocks Rebound. The AP reports, "Wall Street capped a week of remarkable volatility with a big advance Thursday that left stocks higher for the week but didn't silence all of investors' concerns about the economy and the financial system." The Dow Jones "rose 261.66, or 2.16 percent, to 12,361.32, and gained 3.43 percent for the week. ... The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 31.09, or 2.39 percent, to 1,329.51, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 48.15, or 2.18 percent, to 2,258.11. For the week, the S&P rose 3.21 percent, while the Nasdaq gained 2.06 percent." The Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Financial Times, among other print outlets, also report on yesterday's rally.
States Push Tax Holidays USA Today reports, "With federal tax-rebate checks set to go out this spring in an effort to bolster the sagging economy, lawmakers in some states and cities are pushing to create sales-tax holidays to encourage consumers to spend the money in stores."
NBC Nightly News reported, "The man who used to be the Vice President's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, now banned from the practice of law. You will recall Libby was convicted of perjury in the case involving the leaked identity of a CIA operative Valerie Plame. Because of that conviction today as expected a Washington court took Libby's law license away." USA Today, the Washington Post and The Hill are among other media outlets with articles on Libby's disbarment.
In the continuing coverage of the fifth anniversary of the opening of the Iraq war, several media outlets describe scattered signs of progress in areas of the country once synonymous with chaos. The AP reports that yesterday Iraq's prime minister Nouri al-Maliki marked the fifth anniversary of the war with a speech in which he "promised to strengthen Iraq's role in world affairs, assuring the Iraqi people that their nation 'cannot be anything but strong, unified and active.'" Maliki is quoted as saying, "As Iraq has triumphed over terrorism, it will triumph in the international arena." According to the AP, Maliki's "optimistic remarks were the latest in a series of statements aimed at rallying national morale and projecting the image of Iraq as a country on the road to recovery after five years of bombs, bullets and sectarian slaughter." Bolstering Maliki's optimism, USA Today says that a "growing number of foreign fighters are leaving or attempting to flee Iraq as US and Iraqi forces have weakened al-Qaeda and forced its members from former strongholds, US military officials say." US military officials maintain the "trend reflects a broad disenchantment among foreign fighters, particularly since al-Qaeda has lost sanctuaries in parts of Baghdad and Anbar."
The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, describes the "comeback" of Fallujah, "the site of two major battles between Marines and insurgents in 2004," claiming it "surprises even the most optimistic US planners. ... Restaurants, bakeries, photo shops, tire stores, Internet cafes, a body-building studio and other businesses line the avenues and side streets. BMWs share lanes with donkey carts on congested thoroughfares." The Times adds that while "problems...remain: an undersized police department; shortages of electricity, clean water and gasoline; high unemployment; and a small but resistant cadre of insurgents waiting to launch a counterattack," Fallujah is "vibrant again, and its population has climbed back close to its pre-assault level of about 300,000."
Petraeus Wants Troop Reduction "Pause" The AP reports outgoing CENTCOM Commander Adm. William Fallon and the US commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus presented Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with their recommendations on force levels in Iraq, "including expected recommendations for a pause in troop cuts for as much as six weeks later this summer." According to the AP, "there was no indication Petraeus had backed off his call for a brief pause in troop cuts after July in order to see what effect the lower force levels have on violence in Iraq." The AP also reports that "officials also are giving various estimates for the length of the pause -- ranging from four to eight weeks, with most leaning toward the latter." The CBS Evening News also reported Petraeus "officially recommend today that ongoing troop withdrawal stop this summer, at least for a while."
Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan, where he praised US soldiers' efforts but called on other NATO countries to do more to secure gains made in the campaign against the Taliban. The AP reports Cheney "dismissed fears that Afghanistan could slide into a failed state, telling troops on Thursday that the US and NATO allies will not allow resurgent extremists to bully their way back into power." Cheney said, "The Afghan people have no desire to be pulled back into the dark ages. ... They're trusting America to stand by them in this fight, and that trust is being repaid every day. Having liberated this country, the United States and our coalition partners have no intention of allowing extremists to shoot their way back into power." Cheney urged other NATO members "to step up military assistance for Afghanistan as it struggles to rebound from years of tyranny and war." The Financial Times notes Cheney also "said he expected the new government in neighbouring Pakistan, where the Taliban have a sanctuary in the lawless border areas , to 'good and effective' US allies against militancy."
Cheney Presents Silver Star The CBS Evening News reported, "A soldier currently serving on the front lines has become only the second woman since World War II to receive the Silver Star." Cheney "presented the medal today to Army Specialist Monica Brown in Afghanistan. A 19-year-old battlefield medic, she risked her life to treat five wounded members of her unit in the middle of an insurgent attack last April. Her commanders say that without her care, two of the men would have died."
Sign up here to get the US News Political Bulletin emailed to you each morning at 8 a.m.
Top
Jay Leno: "President Bush spoke about the war in Iraq again today. This week marks the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the war. Bush said: 'Turning back now would harm all the gains we've made.' Like oil $100 a barrel worthless dollar, a recession. We can't afford to lose any of that!"
Jay Leno: "According to the latest polls out today, John McCain now in a double digit lead over the Democrats. ... To give you an idea how far McCain is ahead in the polls, today, Hillary offered him the vice presidency."
Sign up here to get the US News Political Bulletin emailed to you each morning at 8 a.m.
Top
Click image for larger view.
Smart analysis, insightful reporting, in-depth perspective—in a new, digital format.
Log in | Buy Now | See sample
View sample page 2View sample page 3View sample page 4View sample page 5advertisement
Get your POLITICALBULLETIN
Click image for larger view.
Smart analysis, insightful reporting, in-depth perspective—in a new, digital format.
Log in | Buy Now | See sample
View sample page 2View sample page 3View sample page 4View sample page 5Embed exclusive U.S. News headlines, rankings, columns, and blog postings to your Web site, blog, or social network.
advertisement
Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of our Terms and Conditions of Use and Privacy Policy.
