Afternoon Update

by Steve

Gee, according to a new poll by CBS News, the American public was not swayed by General Petraeus’ appearances last week.

Henry Waxman may have found another way to get Condi Rice to testify at his House oversight committee. After Rice has blown him off for months on a request to testify on what she knew about the Niger forgeries case while she was Bush’s inept National Security Advisor, Waxman will now get a chance to investigate why Condi allowed her own State Department Inspector General to derail fraud and misconduct investigations of contractors in Iraq. Yet there is a pattern that several Bush inspector generals are nothing more than hacks more interested in protecting the boss than holding the department accountable.

After already lying to Congress once about FISA, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is back today to tell Congress to make the recently passed Protect America Act even worse, and has already told another whopper.

One of Karl Rove’s appointed US Attorneys, in Minnesota, is now under investigation for mishandling classified information, retaliation, and making racist remarks about subordinates. Yup, she sounds like a Bush White House appointee.

With the carnage unfolding all around it, the Fed finally cut the federal funds rate by a full half point today to 4.5% 4.75%. Better late than never.

A Washington Post editorial lauded the Clinton health care proposal for being similar yet better than John Edwards’ proposal. Dan Balz of the paper criticized Mitt Romney and other GOP candidates for vacuously attacking her proposal.

And if Alberto Gonzales was so concerned about protecting the children, then why was this guy working for him? Then again, maybe Alberto has other worries right now.