Del.icio.us Links

links for 2009-03-03

  • Update: Steele says he’s sorry for causing offense and being inarticulate about Limbaugh because his job is to “bring people together.”

    He was just, you know, misunderstood.

    No word on how his agreement with Hughley that the GOP convention looked like “Nazi Germany” was misunderstood, too.
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    A good round-up of today's Rush Limbaugh vs. Michael Steele flap

  • White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, who last month blasted CNBC host Rick Santelli from the podium in the briefing room, challenged reporters on Monday to ask Republicans if they agree with Limbaugh's desire.

    "Do they want to see the president's economic agenda fail? You know, I bet there are a number of guests on television throughout the day and maybe into tomorrow who could let America know whether they agree with what Rush Limbaugh said this weekend."

    Gibbs said he thought "it would be charitable to say he doubled down on what he said in January in wishing and hoping for economic failure in this country."

  • On the same night he was offering the keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Rush Limbaugh drew criticism from an unlikely source: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.

    In a little-noticed interview Saturday night, Steele dismissed Limbaugh as an “entertainer” whose show is “incendiary” and “ugly.”

    Steele’s criticism makes him the highest-ranking Republican to pick a fight with the popular and polarizing conservative talk show host.

    But the new RNC chairman’s extraordinary comments won’t sit well with the millions of conservative listeners Limbaugh draws each week, and Steele aides scrambled to limit the damage Monday morning by trying to change the subject.

  • ohn Cruz, the appointments secretary for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, lives hundreds of miles from the state Capitol, where his staff scrutinizes candidates for California's many boards and commissions.

    When Cruz works there, he goes by plane. He has charged taxpayers for his flights and for hotel bills of up to $382 a night on regular trips between his Orange County home and Sacramento, records show.
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    Pathetically disgusting abuse of public funds.

  • US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is "Doubtful" That Iran will respond to offers of engagement, a senior State Department official said on Monday.

    The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Clinton had told her counterpart from the United Arab Emirates that the United States was under "No illusion" Over Iran. "She (Clinton) said she is doubtful that Iran will respond to any kind of engagement and opening the hand out and reaching out to them," Said the official, who was speaking on the sidelines of an international donors conference for Gaza where Clinton held a series of bilateral meetings.

  • HARPER: We're not going to The bodies of three more Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan are returned home in Decemberwin this war just by staying. We're not going to — in fact, my own judgment, Fareed, is, quite frankly, we are not going to ever defeat the insurgency. Afghanistan has probably had — my reading of Afghanistan history, it's probably had an insurgency forever, of some kind.

    What has to happen in Afghanistan is, we have to have an Afghan government that is capable of managing that insurgency and improving its own governance.
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    Canada gives up and so should American aid to Canada that subsidizes their defense costs

  • There are so many conservative leaders here this weekend. I was looking forward to seeing Governor Palin again. There’s a rumor that she has been offered an 11-million- dollar book contract. My publisher has been talking to me about an 11-millon-dollar deal as well. I’m just not sure I can come up with that kind of money.
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    Romney classsless as ususal. Remember what he did to Huckabee?