John O’Neal, leader of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was just hired as a political analyst for Fox News.
Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO, Fox News Network, in a brief statement said today:
"We are ecstatic at hiring one of the bright new voices in the political world today. His reputation is outstanding and he brings a unique sense of honesty into the FNC stable of fair and balanced reporting."
An insider said they they may build a 30 minute show around Mr. O'Neal, where he will have an open forum to continually bash Senator John Kerry for the remainder of his life.
For now you can see John O'Neal weekly on the "Hannity and Colmes Show."
Jay Rockefeller is actually the chair of the health subcommittee in the Senate Finance Committee. Any "Gang of Six," or really any legislation on the Committee, should at least have his input, if not his controlling hand. Yet Max Baucus froze him out of the legislation in favor of Republicans who will never sign on to the final version and worthless schemes like the Conrad co-op proposal (which is just a thin ploy to get Blue Cross of North Dakota, which controls 90% of the market in Conrad's state, the "co-op" label so it can access federal start-up funds). Rockefeller may have the last laugh when the bill moves into the full committee.
U.S. Senator John Rockefeller, a Finance Committee member and a strong backer of a government-run insurance option, said on Tuesday he will not support the panel's healthcare bill in its present form.
Rockefeller told reporters he was unhappy with the lack of a government-run "public" insurance option in the bill, which is scheduled to be made public on Wednesday, and had problems with some of its changes in children's health insurance and Medicaid, or healthcare for the poor.
In particular, Rockefeller wants a public insurance option instead of the weak co-ops, better affordability provisions so working people can actually use the bill, and changes to the way that Baucuscare deals with the Children's Health Insurance Program and Medicaid.
Rockefeller specifically said "There is no way in its present form that I will vote for it... unless it changes during the amendment process by vast amounts." Now, getting amendments through may not be an easy task. Each Rockefeller amendment in that committee would have to get the votes of all the Democrats plus at least a couple Republicans, if Baucus and Conrad hold firm on them. Considering that 10 of the 13 Democrats on the panel were completely shut out of the process during the Gang of Six talks, I'd expect a lot of support for what Rockefeller wants to do, but Baucus and Conrad can basically nullify anything meaningful on their own, should they want to.
Still, Rockefeller's advocacy is important because it sets the tone for Democrats with the full Senate, where votes like his will be needed. Jon Cohn explains.
A little over a month ago, right before the August recess, I spoke with Rockefeller at some length. And he was clearly wrestling with how to position himself.
No living senator has done as much to promote health reform as he has. It's the cause of his life and, for the first time, the goal is within reach. He admitted that voting against a package, even a flawed one, was difficult to imagine.
But Rockefeller also made clear his frustration with the compromises Baucus was making, whether it was replacing the public plan with a co-op or gradually reducing the subsidies to help people pay for insurance. He was particularly incensed about the changes to Medicaid and CHIP, programs to which he's devoted much of his time--and on which many West Virginians rely.
At the time, it seemed like Rockefeller was still on board, if only to help get a bill out of the Finance Committee and onto the Senate floor. But you got the feeling--well, I got the feeling--that he was near the breaking point.
Sometime since that interview, clearly, he's hit it.
Every vote is precious in the Senate, given that votes on the Republican side other than Olympia Snowe and maybe Susan Collins will not be forthcoming. Harry Reid has laid down the marker that anything less than 60 votes will lead him to go through the reconciliation process (and I don't think Reid's low poll numbers in Nevada will be much of a factor - the consequences of doing nothing on health care would be far graver for him). Therefore everyone in the Democratic caucus, essentially, represents an interest group to be satisfied. Rockefeller is standing up and saying that he's perfectly willing to vote against something that doesn't fulfill the promise of health care reform as he sees it. Bernie Sanders probably feels the same way. Maybe Barbara Boxer does. Or others. Max Baucus and his cronies will have to wrestle with that.
I'm still trying to figure out who ran the worst campaign in the history of politics in the last 50 years. Was it Thompson or Giuliani? (OK, that's a little harsh) It had to be Rudy the front runner, but Fred ran a close second. Anyway, after his humiliating defeat, Fredrick is heading back to Hollywood.
Former Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson is returning to his career as an actor and signed a deal to be represented by the William Morris Agency, the talent group said on Monday.
The 65-year-old actor and politician was a candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. president before dropping out of the race in January after garnering little support. Arizona Senator John McCain is the presumptive Republican nominee.
Maybe Dick Wolf will create another spinoff series: L&O: Lazy-boy Intent. About an aging DA that's just too tired to show up in court. Or, something...
On the 15th of July, 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy accepted his party's presidential nomination at the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. In his remarks, made at a moment of high tension in the cold war, Kennedy asserted that the United States was at "a turning point in history" and called on his listeners to be "pioneers" in a "New Frontier" of "uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus."Collaborating with Kennedy on the speech was a thirty-two-year-old aide named Theodore C. Sorensen, to whom Kennedy was known to refer as his "intellectual blood bank." With Sorensen's help, Kennedy would earn a reputation as one of American history's great orators and provide a bold new vision for the nation.
Today, we are at another moment of high tension, the result of a disastrous war abroad and division and drift at home. Like Kennedy, the next Democratic nominee, whoever he or she might be, will have a similar opportunity to form a new vision for America and to reestablish its moral leadership in the world. To encourage such boldness of thinking, we, too, tapped Kennedy's intellectual blood bank. We called Theodore C. Sorensen and asked him to write the speech he would most want the next Democratic nominee to give at the party convention in Denver in August 2008. We requested that he proceed with no candidate in mind and that he give no consideration to expediency or tactics-in other words, that he write the speech of his dreams. Here is the speech he sent us. Read on...
"The White House’s abuse of the recess appointment made it clear they care more about paying off cronies than nominating ambassadors with good judgment," said Amy Brundage, a spokesperson from Senator John Kerry (D-MA). "Congress has had enough and is going to find every way possible to ensure President Bush listens to Congress about the judgment, character, and honor of those who represent our country all over the world.
One week before the first presidential debate, FOX News Channel host Bill O'Reilly promised his radio show listeners: "[W]e're going to give you a numerical system -- who won the debate and then how they won." Following the September 30 debate, however, as a consensus emerged that Senator John Kerry had "won" the debate, O'Reilly changed his mind. "I'm not going to tell you who won the debate because I really don't have any right to tell you that," he said.
Here's O'Reilly before the debate, on the September 23 broadcast of the nationally syndicated Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:
O'REILLY: We will be down in Miami for that debate, giving you the best coverage. And I'm going to do it like a prizefight. I'm going to kind of come on the radio the day after the debate, and we're going to give you a numerical system -- who won the debate and then how they won. Is that fair?
[...]
All right, I'm going to be as objective as possible, because I don't have a dog in the hunt.
And here's O'Reilly "on the radio the day after the debate," on the October 1 broadcast of The Radio Factor:
O'REILLY: I may surprise you, but I'm not going to tell you who won the debate because I really don't have any right to tell you that. You should make up your own mind on that, and if you didn't see it, you can call me at 1-877-9-NO-SPIN. I'll give you my opinion on various aspects of the debate, but I'm not going to tell you who won it. I mean, I think that's a little haughty. It's a little haughty to do that.
"Swiftboating is American political jargon for truthful and accurate debunking of John Kerry's exaggerated military experience in Vietnam. The Swift Boat Veterans For Truth organization's ads against Democratic presidential candidate Senator John F. Kerry in the 2004 election campaign revealed the candidate to be untruthful in his representation of his military record. Swiftboating is a new political term for exposing the truth while being under constant attack from those that desperately want to believe the lie. "
Someone needs to inform Wikipedia what they have posted is a lie. I was looking to see if John O'Neal or Robert Novak added the entry. (hat tip AS) It looks like the entry is undergoing various changes as you refresh the page. Update: The page has been closed to editing.
Pamela has the latest :Today, Senator John Kerry; Senator Carl Levin, Ranking Member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations; and 24 other Senators formally requested that Congress investigate the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity...read on
VATICAN CITY -- A conservative US lawyer's attempt to enlist the Vatican in his drive to declare Senator John F. Kerry a heretic over his abortion views backfired yesterday when the Holy See said it had been hoodwinked.
Marc Balestrieri, head of a conservative Catholic group called De Fide, has been pushing for the church to rule that the Democratic presidential candidate has inflicted excommunication on himself because he supports a woman's right to an abortion.
But yesterday, the Vatican denied his assertions, which received widespread coverage in major US media.
Father Augustine Di Noia, third-ranking official in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's doctrinal office, said that Balestrieri had hoodwinked the church by misrepresenting himself.
Kerry, a Roman Catholic, says he is ''prochoice but not proabortion" and that he cannot impose his views on those who do not share his faith. Bush, a Methodist, is against abortion except in certain circumstances.
Senator John Thune, who promised during his campaign against then-Minority Leader Tom Daschle that electing him would save Ellsworth Air Force Base, is opposing John Bolton's nomination as UN Ambassador in a bizarre protest against that base's inclusion on the BRAC list.
As James Joyner says, this is surprising to have a junior senator bucking the administration's man. I wish his protest though was founded on the idea that Bolton is a terrible choice to go to the UN instead of a power play.
