Why The US Is Getting Weaker Under Bush

Answer: Because the people don't SHOW that they care! [see TelAviv pic here]

International:
Roughly 100,000 people rally in Tel Aviv to call on PM, Peretz to quit
More than 100,000 people rallied in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square on Thursday, in the first national protest calling on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz to resign over the damning Winograd report on the Second Lebanon War.While police would only say the number of protestors was over 100,000, the rally's organizers said closer to 200,000 were in attendance. A banner reading "Failures, Go Home!" hung behind a podium set up at one end of the square in front of Tel Aviv city hall. "Ehud Olmert, you said you work for us. Olmert, you are fired!" said the evening's keynote speaker, author Meir Shalev. "Amir Peretz - you said [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah will never forget your name. Neither will we." Read the rest.


National:
Who Wants To Be Reagan Most?
Ten Republicans who often evoke Ronald Reagan hope the Gipper's magic rubs off as they face each other at the late president's library in the first GOP debate of the 2008 race. The setting and the state were fitting.

Republican top-tier contenders Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney — as well as some of their underdog rivals — have embraced the conservative icon's legacy and called for their party to return to the limited-government that Reagan espoused in the 1980s, effectively distancing themselves from Bush.

Delegate-rich California also has become an important stop in the GOP campaign now that the state has moved up its primary to Feb. 5, far earlier than in elections past. More here.


Obama Gets Secret Service Detail
The Secret Service said Thursday that Democratic Sen. Barack Obama was being placed under its protection, the earliest ever for a presidential candidate.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff authorized Obama's protection after consultations with the bipartisan congressional advisory committee, according to Chertoff spokesman Russ Knocke and the Secret Service.

Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren would not provide details of what led to the extra security, but said, "I'm not aware it was based on any threat." According to the Department of Homeland Security, there were no known threats and Obama requested the protection. Details here.


Clinton calls for end to Iraq war authorization
In her most dramatic statement on the Iraq war since officially entering the 2008 presidential race, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) called for ending the 2002 authorization resolution for the war.
Clinton joined with Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.), a leading war opponent, in offering a proposal to "sunset" the 2002 use-of-force resolution by Oct. 11, 2007, the fifth anniversary of the Senate vote allowing President Bush to take military action against Saddam Hussein. Under the Byrd-Clinton plan, Bush would then have to return to Congress to seek new authority to conduct the war.
Clinton supported the 2002 resolution but has now turned against the war. Byrd was a vocal opponent of the war then and remains so to this day.

"The American people have called for change, the facts on the ground demand change, the Congress has passed legislation to require change," Clinton said on the Senate floor today. "It is time to sunset the authorization for the war in Iraq. If the president will not bring himself to accept reality, it is time for Congress to bring reality to him."


In Other News...
Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, "a widely respected prosecutor," will testified before the House Judiciary Committee. "His departure is now seen as a marker of a transition at the department in mid-2005, a few months after Mr. Gonzales became attorney general, as less experienced and more politically oriented officials like [Kyle] Sampson and [Monica] Goodling gained power."

President Bush and congressional leaders have begun negotiating a second war funding bill that omits the withdrawal timeline. The second measure would step up Iraqi accountability, "transition" the U.S. military role, and show "a reasonable way to end this war." Some conservatives are "beginning to move away from the White House to stake out a more critical position on the U.S. role in war."

"Lawmakers of both parties are making a new effort to pass a federal shield law to protect reporters from being forced to reveal their sources." Such protection "would give government whistle-blowers more reason to reveal corruption when they know that reporters will be shielded in most cases from prosecutors' efforts to reveal information."

Stuart Bowen, the inspector general "who uncovered cases of waste, fraud and abuse in the U.S.-led reconstruction effort in Iraq," is under investigation by a presidential panel. Former employees "filed complaints last year about Bowen not showing up for work for long periods of time in 2004," and that he "had employees work on a book that is to explain the lessons of Iraq reconstruction."

U.S. News reports, "One of [Rep. Henry] Waxman's next objectives will be not only to examine false claims by administration officials to justify invading Iraq but also to expose people and companies that have profited disproportionately from the war, congressional sources say. Hill Democrats think this line of inquiry will be explosive and will tarnish" war proponents.

Dana Perino's dog tricks. When Deputy White House Press Secretary Dana Perino arrives home each night, she has her Hungarian hunting dog, "Henry," help her relax in an unusually political manner. "When Perino says to the dog, 'Tell us what you think of John Kerry,' the dog runs off and fetches flip-flops."


From The Right: Austin Bay: Exploiting Al-Qaida's Weaknesses Fearing an American and Iraqi strategic victory (creating a democracy defending itself against terrorists), Zarqawi saw only one strategic option: exploit Iraq's Shia-Sunni religious divide by slaughtering Iraqi Shia civilians.


From The Left: Maureen Dowd: Better Never Than Late Instead of George Tenet teaching at Georgetown University, George Tenet should be taught at Georgetown University.There should be a course on government called “The Ultimate Staff Guy.” A morality saga about how much harm you can do as a go-along, get-along guy, spending so much time trying not to alienate the big cheese so he doesn’t can you that you miss the moment where you have to can him or lose your soul.


Quote Of The Day: "For America, the decision we face in Iraq is not whether we ought to take sides in a civil war, it's whether we stay in the fight against the same international terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11," President Bush -as he mentioned al Qaeda 27 times during his speech on Iraq yesterday.


(Sources: Haaratz, WashingtonPost, FOXNews, LATimes, DrudgeReport, MyWay, ThePolitico, ThinkProgress, USHouseOfRepresentatives, NYT, Time, USNews, TownHall)