North Star Politics

And so the first (but perhaps not only) 2005 special session ends. Wrap-up later in the day - for now, the Strib has coverage.

This kind of stuff happens when Republicans run the place.

Our good junior Senator had this to say about the Karl Rove controversy:

My Democratic friends would be doing the nation a great service if they spent half as much time getting legislation passed that will benefit the country as they do in attacking Karl Rove. When you're out of ideas and lack vision, you are left with nothing but personal attacks and negativity. We have enough to do in the Senate in minding our own business than to be sticking our noses into someone else's business. Everyone needs to cool the rhetoric, focus on the business of the people, and allow the investigation to run its course.

That's awfully nice, Mister Senator. Can I show you something, sir? It's the Constitution of the United States of America. Now, I know it doesn't say it explicitly, so you'll have to read into it a bit. But it was written to create a system of checks and balances. For example, the body in which you serve, the United States Senate, has the power to impeach the President. Also, the Congress (that's the House and Senate combined, now) has the power to declare war. Thus, you, Sen. Coleman, are responsible for a little bit of our national security and for overseeing the actions of the executive branch. Would you mind acting like it, please? We have a senior advisor to the President of the United States leaking the names of undercover agents, and that's just not okay. In fact, it's a violation of federal law. So Norm, could you please run along with your friends, keep your mouth closed, and let the big kids deal with this? Thanks, buddy.

Saw my first Amy Klobuchar bumper sticker yesterday. It looked good, and it was pretty encouraging, when you consider that it's a solid...lets see...481 days until the general election.

As a side note, NSP isn't endorsing Klobuchar or anything. She seems like a good candidate, though, and I'd be happy to see her endorsed, but I don't think she's set herself apart from the field yet.

This is quite possibly the dumbest post I've ever seen.

I'll be upfront about the fact that I'm not a big fan of MDE. I think it takes far too personal an angle on politics, with posts about Colleen Rowley's appearance, posts about Mike Hatch's daughters, etc. North Star Politics (I need links here, folks!) has never taken such an angle and never will. It's unfortunate; MDE does a great job otherwise. I don't agree with MDE's politics, but neither party has the right to misbehave, and MDE does a pretty good job in that respect.

Honestly, though, what kind of argument is this? Amy Klobuchar is a county attorney. She doesn't make the laws, she just puts behind bars those who police find breaking laws. Even as a US Senator, she wouldn't be directly involved in reducing crime. Just ridiculous.

Credit to Zack for his comment on MDE's post, which led to the headline.

...this is what we fought for. It's not enough, after the last few years, but it's a start. Two more seats in the House and a DFLer in the Governor's Mansion and we can properly fund schools.

Just...wow. Via Atrios, Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory absolutely takes Sen. Rick Santorum to the woodshed.

Boston as a town and Massachusetts as a state (or a commonwealth, as they like to brag) are just about as blue as you can get. They stand for everything that Sen. Santorum does not. Even so, though, how many times are you going to see something like this in a major newspaper?

President George W. Bush, the head of an administration which sees just about anything less than absolute obedience as high treason, is seeing more of his citizens think the Second Persian Gulf War might have been a bit of a bad idea.

The proportion of respondents who said they believe the war in Iraq has made the United States less safe from terrorism jumped to 54 percent in the latest poll. That is a dramatic increase from 39 percent in the poll conducted June 29-30, a week before the London attacks.

Of the 489 people asked that specific question, 40 percent believed the Iraq war had made the United States safer -- down from 44 percent in the previous poll.

The other 517 poll respondents were asked whether the Iraq war had made the world safer. Forty percent said it had, and 52 percent said it made the world less safe.

Well, we were a little late, and we've already been had, but I guess we're starting to get it. Maybe we'll have completely wised up by Nov. 7th, 2006.