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- Barack Obama is using the outbreak of swine flu to argue, rightly, for increased federal funding for basic scientific research, while some GOP "moderates" are trying to whitewash their decision to strip funding for swine flu prevention from the February economic stimulus package. Meanwhile, I genuinely wonder if Rick Perry is aware that his principled stand against accepting the
jackboot of the statestimulus funds sorta contradicts his request for federal help in dealing with pandemics. - I'm beginning to sense that the GOP base described in this weekend Politico piece is truly incapable of grasping that anywhere from two-thirds to three-quarters of Americans like the president, like his policies, like the direction he's taking the country, and loathe the GOP congressional rump. They also don't understand that they're merely a vocal plurality in a Republican party that only 1-in-5 Americans identify themselves with. And they also don't seem to get that their ideological spokespeople aren't mounting a very credible or widely-shared criticism of the president's "first hundred days."
- I'm quite shocked by the levels of moral depravity the American Right has sunk to to defend the Bush administration and its use of torture for intelligence gathering. Even more sickening is Erick Erickson's apparent belief that the Obama administration cynically released the torture memos now in order to be ready to blame the Bush administration when the next terrorist attack comes, which they're all but welcoming with open arms. I'll leave it up to the reader to decide whether the right wing's open embrace of war crimes is a bug or a feature of the political movement that brought us George Bush.
- Speaking of torture, Carl Levin is calling for an independent prosecutor (though not in those words) to investigate the authorization of torture by the Bush administration, which I'm amazed we're actually debating about when it's so abundantly clear that torture was used and that it didn't make us any safer.
- Seems there's some fuzziness going on with the exact date U.S. forces are leaving Iraq. According to The New York Times, American and Iraqi officials are negotiating an exception to the SOFA stipulation that all combat forces leave by June 30 in order to focus on renewed violence in Mosul.
- Weekend Remainders: Lizza profiles Orszag; Silver looks at the libertarian wing of the GOP (again); Obama knew the moment John McCain had lost to him; John Sununu is apparently a very stupid man; and Fox News sets the bar high for asking leading polling questions.
--Mori Dinauer
