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Posts published in “Day: January 9, 2007”

International man of mystery

January 9, 2007

Gordon SmithHere's a thing about being a senator: One speech and - yow - you're an international figure.

Here are the items about Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, who recently broke with Bush Administration policy on Iraq - in a speech on the Senate floor, and has had provocative things to say about it since - to pop on Google just in the last 20 minutes:

Fissures Grow on Eve of Bush Speech on Iraq
New York Times - New York,NY,USA
But another Republican senator, Gordon Smith of Oregon, said recently he has lost faith in the White House’s policy. (Mr. Smith is not on the Armed Services ...

Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) Calls Kennedy’s Iraq Escalation Bill ‘A ...
Think Progress - Washington,DC,USA
Republican Senator Gordon Smith, recently soured on the war, tells CNN he thinks Kennedy’s idea for a new congressional authorization is a good one. ...
See all stories on this topic

Bush plans to send 20000 more troops to Iraq
Globe and Mail - Toronto,Ontario,Canada
... who pledged to bolster security if the United States sends more troops, Republican Senator Gordon Smith said yesterday, according to Reuters. ...

To Surge or Not
New York Times - New York,NY,USA
Maybe these consultations with lawmakers, in which as Senator Gordon Smith said the president told them about his plan, result not in altering the planned ...

Bush faces Congress over Iraq plan today
Daily Times - Lahore,Pakistan
One surprisingly harsh Republican critic, Senator Gordon Smith, said a “surge” in US forces in Iraq would merely extend what has been a failed US policy ...

'Bush's Iraq plan to include more troops'
Times of India - New Delhi,India
Oregon Republican Senator Gordon Smith, who a month ago said he could no longer support the war, was among senators who attended a White House meeting to ...

Gordon Smith must be the best-known Northwesterner worldwide, right now. Whether that happened because he followed his conscience or followed the polls is still hotly debated; the accelerating attention will probably accelerate the debate too.

Searching for Windust

January 9, 2007
Chris Gregoire
Chris Gregoire

Washington Governor Chris Gregoire may have made a large stir in a small place when she asked the assembled crowd how many knew where Windust, Washington, was. (Not many did.)

She went on: "Let me help you. It is near Kahlotus. (pause) I’m still getting a lot of blank stares. (pause) Windust is a wide spot in the road in Southeast Washington. It is in the heart of wheat growing country. As a young girl, I spent summers in Windust helping on the farm while my uncle harvested wheat."

This may have made some in her audience a little uncomfortable - setting up a contest in which she knew the answer to the riddle, and some of them didn't.

Pieces of her state of the state speech today seemed a little like that, almost a search for ideas for the second half of her term. The last legislative term (as she noted up front) hit a lot of big marks. She has a real question afoot now: What next, for a second act?

She came up with several notions, such as rating day care centers (one to five stars!), a statewide math teaching requirement, a state college tuition cap and more. But it was hard in pulling this together to draw a larger vision out of it.

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Benched

January 9, 2007

Achange in control of Congress cuts in many directions, and the federal courts are one of them. Hence, we presume, the withdrawal of William G. Myers as a nominee for a spot on the bench of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

William Myers
William Myers

You could understand if exhaustion of patience alone were responsible. But there was more to it: Myers was just one of four nominees, all proposed for the bench on courts of appeals, who today withdrew their names. There was no indication at least publicly that the Bush Administration asked them to drop out (and one had indiced his intent last month). It seems more like a commonly-accepted understanding that these nominations were not destined to fly.

It's been a long time coming for a nomination that originally dates back to 2003 (renewed since then), and has been the focus of some intense controversy.

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