"Too bad," Kerry said, "if a governor had to go missing it couldn't have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin."
Well, Sarah Palin has responded in kind. Speaking to troops at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo today, Palin took a shot at Kerry's visage:
"Senator John Kerry makes this joke, I don't know if you saw this, but he makes this joke saying, 'Shoot of all the governors in the nation who disappeared, too bad it couldn't have been that governor from Alaska.'
But the way he said it, he looked quite frustrated, and he looked so sad, and I just wanted to reach out to the TV and say, John Kerry, why the long face?"
ZING!
The remarks come during the last 20 seconds or so of this video:
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (Tex.) told reporters that the organization will anoint a candidate to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) in 2010.
According to the Las Vegas Sun, Cornyn told a group of reporters "We don't have a candidate yet...We're working on it. There'll be hopefully some news here in the coming weeks."
Cornyn's announcement, while unspecific, has heightened the speculation surrounding which potential challenger the NRSC will choose. Rep. Dean Heller is rumored to be the top choice amongst Nevada Republicans. But with Heller staying mum, Republican state Sen. Mark Amodei visited Capitol Hill this week and told the Sun early last month "If Dean doesn't, I'll consider it."
Republicans might not be in a rush to appoint a candidate to run against Reid, whose approval ratings have dipped below 40 percent. But Republicans are still watchful that the NRSC chooses a candidate who has a strong chance to unseat the four-term Senator next year.
OK, not really shocking, but Gallup sure picked a good day to re-release a poll testing the perceived morality of various "taboos."
Turns out 92% of Americans consider extramarital affairs to be morally unacceptable. If anything, that number must be a little higher in conservative South Carolina.
In fact, cheating is considered the MOST morally wrong of all the taboos included in the poll, topping (if that's the word) suicide, abortion, polygamy and human cloning.
Opinions about the morality of affairs remain virtually unchanged since 2001. The percentage of respondents calling infidelity "morally wrong" has remained between 87% and 93% over the last eight years.
Mark Sanford's wife did not know his whereabouts during his trip to Argentina because the couple was in the midst of a "trial separation," South Carolina's first lady said in a statement this afternoon.
The Governor said this afternoon that his wife became aware of the affair five months ago and that they were in the process of trying to repair their marriage. But Ms. Sanford's statement suggests things hit a low point recently.
"We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong. I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago," Mrs. Sanford said. She added: "Because of this separation, I did not know where he was in the past week."
Sanford reportedly left South Carolina for Argentina last Thursday, approximately one week after his wife and he agreed to separate.
Jenny Sanford said the separation was intended to help repair the marriage, and that it is still her hopes that their relationship can be saved.
"I believe Mark has earned a chance to resurrect our marriage," Mrs. Sanford said.
The latest version of Mark Sanford's excellent adventure is that he was driving along the coastline in Argentina to clear his head after a tough legislative session.
But a few more strange details are emerging. For example, ABC reports that Sanford did not notify anyone in the U.S. Embassy about his trip:
ABC's Joe Goldman reports that a US embassy official in Buenos Aires tells him that the embassy had "absolutely no idea" that Sanford was in Argentina. The embassy official added that this comes "from out of left field--it would be extremely odd that a US governor would not check in with the embassy."
Trying to drive along the coast could frustrate a weekend visitor to Argentina. In Buenos Aires, the Avenida Costanera is the only coastal road, and it's less than two miles long. Reaching coastal resorts to the south requires a drive of nearly four hours on an inland highway with views of endless cattle ranches. To the north is a river delta of islands reached only by boat.
So Sanford spent four or five days driving a 2 mile strip of highway?
The Obama administration is denying requests to make public the White House visitor logs, adopting a Bush administration policy and drawing the ire of ethics watchdogs.
Both MSNBC.com and the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have been denied access to the logs, which would reveal who met with various White House officials. CREW is filing a lawsuit this afternoon to seek access to the documents.
"The Obama administration has now taken exactly the same position as the Bush administration, telling us the visitor logs are presidential records," Anne Weismann, the legal counsel for CREW, told the Washington Post. "I don't see how you can keep people from knowing who visits the White House and adhere to a policy of openness and transparency. The discrepancy between the rhetoric and the policy is especially great."
A federal judge rejected the Bush administration's plea to keep the documents secret, and it's unclear what has changed this time around.
Asked about the controversy today, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defended the secretive policy.
"The policy, as you know, and I think many of you know...visitor logs have been involved in some litigation dating back to sometime in 2006," Gibbs said at his daily briefing. "The White House is reviewing that policy based on some of that litigation."
One of the House's electronic vote recording machines gave off an error message Thursday morning when it was turned on for the day's proceedings, forcing officials to delay House activity until they could resolve the matter. The system glitch did not affect any of the day's votes, according to an official with the House's Office of the Clerk.
"They conduct a test every morning and there was an error message that was received so they wanted to retest the system to make sure it was working properly before any votes," said the official.
The electronic voting system was first used in 1973 to record a quorum call, but a version of the system was first proposed to Congress by Thomas Edison in 1869.
Obama's former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright said yesterday he hasn't talked to the President because "them Jews" won't let him, apparently referring to Obama's aides.
"Asked if he had spoken to the President, Wright said: 'Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter, that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office. ...
"They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. ... I said from the beginning: He's a politician; I'm a pastor. He's got to do what politicians do."
Wright said he had no hard feelings toward Obama for distancing himself from Wright during the campaign, adding that he voted for him anyway.
"Of course I voted for him; he's my son. I'm proud of him," Wright said. "I've got five biological kids. They all make mistakes and bad choices. I haven't stopped loving any of them.
"He made mistakes. He made bad choices. I've got kids who listen to their friends. He listened to those around him. I did not disown him."n the election and referred to the President as his "son."
"Bad choices?" From the sound of these remarks, it seems like Obama made exactly the right decision in distancing himself from Wright.
Greg Sargent points out an interesting Gallup poll yesterday in which Obama gets higher marks (for the most part) on foreign policy and national security than on domestic issues.
Sargent calls this a "reverse Nixon-to-China sybdrome." (The conventional wisdom is that it's easier for hawks to make "dovish" concessions. But Obama is a dove getting high marks for somewhat "dovish" positions, Sargent argues.)
Indeed, it doesn't look as though Obama's position on Guantanamo Bay and openness to talks with Iran is hurting him.
Ed Morrissey flags a fascinating (if perhaps logical) aspect of President Obama's overseas trip:
A US "taster" tested the food being dished up to President Barack Obama at a dinner in a French restaurant, a waiter said on Sunday.
"They have someone who tastes the dishes," said waiter Gabriel de Carvalho from the "La Fontaine de Mars" restaurant where Obama and his family turned up for dinner on Saturday night.
Is this common practice for a President? Well, Morrissey points out that President Bush did the same thing when visiting Buckingham palace.
Not a bad gig for the taster, since you'd expect the President is getting the finest French cuisine while visiting, no?
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