memeorandum: Our view on Congress and Iraq: Pork has no place in 'emergency' war bill (blogs.usatoday.com)

3:15 PM ET, March 22, 2007

Top Items:

Edwards to Suspend Campaign — John Edwards is suspending his campaign for President, and may drop out completely, because his wife has suffered a recurrence of the cancer that sickened her in 2004, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, an Edwards friend told The Politico.

Ben Smith / The Politico:

Getting It Wrong — A single, confident source close to John Edwards told me this morning that Edwards was "suspending his campaign," and I posted it to the blog at 11:06 this morning. — My source, and I, were wrong. — The source, whose anonymity I agreed to respect …

Discussion: TAPPED, FishBowlDC, Gallup Guru, All Spin Zone and The Daily Dish

MSNBC:

Wife's illness won't idle Edwards '08 campaign — 'Campaign goes on,' Democratic hopeful says despite return of wife's cancer — WASHINGTON - His wife's cancer has returned, but former North Carolina senator John Edwards says he'll continue his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, The Caucus, Senate 2008 Guru, The Democratic Daily, Donklephant, Balloon Juice, The Mahablog, Liberty Street, Michael P.F. van der Galiën and State of the Day

CNN:

Edwards: Wife's cancer returns, campaign goes on … CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina (CNN) — Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said Thursday his wife's cancer has returned but his bid for the White House will go on. — "The campaign goes on," John Edwards said at a news conference outside …

Discussion: protein wisdom, PoliBlog (TM), QandO and Wizbang

Mike Baker / Associated Press:

Edwards will continue presidential run — CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - John Edwards said Thursday his wife's cancer has returned, but said he will continue his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. — "The campaign goes on. The campaign goes on strongly," Edwards told reporters, his wife by his side.

Discussion: Simply Left Behind, GINA COBB and Blue Crab Boulevard

New York Times:

Edwards to Continue '08 Bid Despite Wife's Cancer — John Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat, said today that his wife's cancer had returned, but that his bid for the presidency "goes on strongly." — "The campaign goes on, the campaign goes on strongly," he said, with his wife, Elizabeth, at his side.

Discussion: Prairie Weather and Taylor Marsh

Associated Press:

Edwards to continue campaign despite return of wife's cancer — CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said today that his wife's cancer has returned and is no longer curable, but is treatable. — But he said he will continue his campaign. — "We are very optimistic about this," he said.

Adam Nagourney / New York Times:
Edwards and Wife Plan News Conference

Discussion: Associated Press, ABCNEWS, Right Wing Nut House, Captain's Quarters, Firedoglake, TalkLeft, AMERICAblog, Donklephant, Sister Toldjah, Matthew Yglesias, Michael P.F. van der Galiën, My Left Wing, The American Street, Pajamas Media and The Democratic Daily

Susan Crabtree / The Hill:

E-mails on attorneys' firings could impact privilege case — As the White House prepares for a constitutional showdown over subpoenas of top administration aides to testify about the firings of U.S. attorneys, the viability of President Bush's executive privilege argument may come …

Discussion: Washington Post

Julie Hirschfeld Davis / Associated Press:
Senate panel OKs subpoenas for key aides

Discussion: TIME: Swampland, All Spin Zone and CorrenteWire

Washington Post:
Political Spectacle — THE WHITE HOUSE and congressional Democrats …

Discussion: New York Times, The Carpetbagger Report, Boston Globe, CorrenteWire, Middle Earth Journal, Michael P.F. van der Galiën, TalkLeft, The Heretik and Matthew Yglesias

Kevin Bohn / CNN:
Gap in Justice, White House e-mails raises questions

Discussion: News Bloggers Blog, New York Times and The Volokh Conspiracy

Carol D. Leonnig / Washington Post:

Prosecutor Says Bush Appointees Interfered With Tobacco Case — The leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.

Discussion: The Carpetbagger Report, Shakespeare's Sister, The Mahablog, CorrenteWire, Macsmind, TPMmuckraker, The Impolitic, Crooks and Liars, Patterico's Pontifications, TalkLeft and Angry Bear

Maura Dolan / Los Angeles Times:
Bush loyalist among fired U.S. attorneys

Discussion: NewsBusters.org, Public Eye, Political Animal, Obsidian Wings, The Carpetbagger Report and State of the Day

Paul Kiel / TPMmuckraker:
Today's Must Read

Discussion: Patterico's Pontifications and Mercury Rising

Robert D. Novak / Washington Post:

Was She Covert? — Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra could hardly believe what he heard on television Friday as he watched a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democratic committee chairman, said his statement had been approved by the CIA director, Michael Hayden.

Discussion: Booman Tribune, Sweetness & Light, Cliff Schecter, At-Largely, The Lede, Angry Bear, Brian Beutler, Macsmind and Think Progress

Emptywheel / Firedoglake: Toensing's Little Inaccuracies

Sidney Blumenthal / Salon:

What Bush is hiding — In the U.S. attorney scandal, Alberto Gonzales gave orders, but he also took them — from Karl Rove, who plotted to turn the federal criminal justice system into the Republican Holy Office of the Inquisition. — Alberto Gonzales, right, and Karl Rove at the Jan. 31 …

Discussion: Firedoglake, Democratic Underground, The Moderate Voice and Norwegianity

Think Progress:
Gonzales: I'm Staying For The Kids

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, The Carpetbagger Report and Political Radar

Jeff Zeleny / New York Times:

House Democrats Weigh Plan for Iraq Withdrawal — Representative Dan Boren is a Democrat, but after visiting Iraq last week he announced a decision that puts him at odds with his party's leaders: he intends to vote against their plan to set a deadline for troops to leave Iraq.

Discussion: Gateway Pundit, Captain's Quarters, Instapundit.com, TalkLeft, Wake up America, Neptunus Lex, DownWithTyranny! and Blue Crab Boulevard

The Hill:
Votes, days tick away on Iraq bill

Discussion: Dick Polman's American Debate, DownWithTyranny! and Booman Tribune

Jerid / Buckeye State Blog:

Calling BS on De Vellis - It Wasn't Him — Phil claims he made it? I say don't buy everything you read. — Those who have been around the Buckeye 'sphere for a while know Mr. De Vellis well. One of the most unscrupulous Democratic staffers to come to Ohio in quite a while, creative and talented Phil is not.

Discussion: The Politico, Associated Press, The Huffington Post, Riehl World View, Blogometer, Blog P.I., NewsBusters.org, The Swamp, MSNBC, Power Line, the david all group, Blue Crab Boulevard and politburo diktat 2.0

Washington Post:
Man Behind the Clinton Clip Worked for Obama's Net Strategists

Discussion: The Carpetbagger Report, Big Brass Blog and The Huffington Post

Ahmed Rashid / Washington Post:

Musharraf at the Exit — LAHORE, Pakistan — In the rapidly unfolding crisis in Pakistan, no matter what happens to President Pervez Musharraf — whether he survives politically or not — he is a lame duck. He is unable to rein in Talibanization in Pakistan or guide the country toward a more democratic future.

Discussion: Taylor Marsh, Hot Air, democracyarsenal.org and Michael P.F. van der Galiën

Washington Post:

Pentagon Is Probing Veterans Home — Increased Deaths, Grim Conditions Reported by GAO — Reports of a rising death rate and rooms spattered with blood, urine and feces at the Armed Forces Retirement Home prompted the Pentagon yesterday to begin investigating conditions at the veterans facility in Northwest Washington.

Discussion: The Democratic Daily, AMERICAblog and Just a Bump in the Beltway

Anthony Man / Sun-Sentinel:

Florida moves to wipe out clout of smaller states with Jan. 29 presidential primary — Tallahassee - Hoping to muscle Florida into a pre-eminent role in picking next year's Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, the state House voted Wednesday to leapfrog almost all the other states …

Discussion: shotinthedark.info/wp … and Outside The Beltway

blogs.usatoday.com:

Our view on Congress and Iraq: Pork has no place in 'emergency' war bill — Larding the Iraq funding legislation cheapens the debate over pullout. — With the House poised to vote as early as today on a $124.1 billion budget bill that would end U.S. involvement in Iraq next year …

Discussion: Obsidian Wings and Sister Toldjah

Iain Murray / New York Post:

AL'S WARMING LIES — & THE REAL 'INCONVENIENT TRUTH' — AL Gore was born and spent most of his life in Washington, D.C. Yesterday, he returned to the fever swamp to show he's forgotten none of his old political tricks. — Addressing the House and Senate on global warming …

Discussion: The Corner

Penelope Green / New York Times:

The Year Without Toilet Paper — DINNER was the usual affair on Thursday night in Apartment 9F in an elegant prewar on Lower Fifth Avenue. There was shredded cabbage with fruit-scrap vinegar; mashed parsnips and yellow carrots with local butter and fresh thyme; a terrific frittata …

Discussion: Althouse and Ed Driscoll.com

Dana Milbank / Washington Post:

Some Heated Words for Mr. Global Warming — Al Gore, star of an Academy Award-winning film, was in town for a double feature on Capitol Hill yesterday. But instead of giving another screening of "An Inconvenient Truth," the former vice president found himself playing the Clarence Darrow character in "Inherit the Wind."

Discussion: JustOneMinute, Sadly, No! and NewsBusters.org