Bad News Rising

NJDC sent their latest email yesterday and because I was offline most of the day, I just now had time to read it in full. For a Jew, no matter what party I belong to, the quotes are not any fun to read. Here's a sample:

Two weeks ago today, Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) brought an amendment before the House Armed Services Committee to urge the Air Force to develop a plan to ensure "a climate free from religious intimidation and proselytizing."

How did Republicans on the committee respond?

Just listen to Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) blame the victims and dismiss the legitimate concerns of Jews and others: "There is a problem in the military... the problem is political correctness."

Or Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN): "This amendment would bring the ACLU into the United States military, it would bring the silly thinking of several of our judicial systems such as the Ninth Circuit...." Rep. Hostettler went on to discuss what he termed "the mythical wall separation (sic) between church and state that's been erected by the courts...."

Rep. Israel then took the amendment directly to the House Rules Committee, where it was suppressed by the House GOP leadership -- supported by every Democrat, and opposed by every Republican.

You can go ahead and mark Congressmen Walter Jones and John Hostettler down as anti-Semitic. This has nothing to do with the ALCU. The wall of seperation is no myth. It is real. For the Republican House Leadership to do nothing is saddening. Sure, we have the freedom of religion but we also have the seperation of religion and state.

Edwards is running as an outsider. For some reason, I just can't type correct today.

Democratic insiders say the lack of a bully pulpit is Edwards’s biggest weakness, and several relegate him to second-tier status for that reason.

But he is still considered one of the party’s most eloquent spokesmen. And only Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Kerry are more popular with Democratic voters. Edwards hails from the South, as has every Democrat to win the White House since John Kennedy. That is why several of the cognoscenti, such as John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, put Edwards among the front-runners.

But Podesta, who is close to Clinton and who served as chief of staff in her husband’s White House, may have an ulterior motive. He puts Edwards ahead of Evan Bayh (D), a second-term senator from Indiana and former, two-term governor.

Bayh outperformed President Bush in the Hoosier State, which Bush carried with 60 percent of the vote. Edwards and Bayh are expected to contend for the "not-Hillary" label in the primaries, in which Clinton will be painted as uncompetitive in "red states."

Edwards’s camp trumpets a Marist College poll from April showing that, while Edwards trails Clinton and Kerry by 24 points and two points, respectively, in a Democratic primary match-up, Edwards fairs better than either against the two early Republican front-runners, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).

Many Democrats still need to be sold on Edwards’s viability.

"I don’t know what Edwards is doing right now, and I pay a lot of attention to what is going on," said Steve Grossman, who served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1998. " know what Hillary is doing. I know what Bayh is doing. I know what Kerry is doing." They all have a job; they all have a bully pulpit.

"The question is how does Edwards find a bully pulpit? Without it I don’t see how he makes it into the first tier, as attractive a human being as he is."

To stay in the spotlight, Edwards has a patchwork of causes and the good graces of party officials and activists. But he is soon moving away from Washington to Orange County, N.C.

Adam Corolla's new show on Comedy Central will start in August.

Jason "Izzy" Isringhausen blew the save marking an end to 21 consecutive save opportunities. June 7-8, 2005, marks the MLB draft. St. Louis has 7 of the first 80 picks.