There's a new Quick Poll! question on this page that you should vote in. Republicans are worried by the uphill challenge they face in the November '08, when they must defend 22 Senate seats compared to the Democrats' 12. This is bruited as an explanation for recent GOP defections on the Iraq war. Scroll down the page, cast your vote and give us an idea of how you assess the Republicans' predicament.

Three quarters of those who answered this week's Quick Poll! question — Is the defeat of the immigration bill good news or bad news? — welcomed the rout in the Senate. The percentages? — 76% good news, 24% bad news.

Throughout weeks of debate, there was a strong undertow of opinion insisting that no legislation was better than bad legislation — the implication was that this was a very bad bill — and presented this view as a challenge to that attributed to a legacy-conscious President Bush, that any immigration reform reaching his desk deserved his signature.

The groundswell against what was regarded as veiled amnesty for illegal immigrants prompted congressional talk of reviving mandatory "fairness" in broadcasting, which some people say is a euphemism for government meddling.

Starting next week I will be accepting questions for my Q & A video posts. We welcome questions that are useful, interesting, entertaining — and not necessarily in that order. Let's talk politics and let's please have a few laughs. Please e-mail an abundance of suitable questions to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Spare us the offensive, unGoogleable, unthinkable or otherwise useless. I look forward to hearing from all of you often!

So far, it’s all been good for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in her race for the White House — or the Restoration, as it has been called. She leads in every poll and it’s due primarily to her service as first lady in the White House of her husband, the 42nd president, Bill Clinton. He has bequeathed to her his popularity in the Democratic Party, visibility, experience with national issues, gobs of money and endorsements and a team of experienced operatives who know how to run presidential campaigns.

But for the first time this week, we have seen the potential downside of this alliance. At a time when all Democrats are either outraged over or chortling about the Libby pardon, Mrs. Clinton has found out all too well about the less desirable aspects of being inextricably tied to her husband.  Read more...

Do the Democrats want to end the war in Iraq or keep the issue? Yesterday we learned the significant news that Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) has left the reservation and is urging President Bush for a new strategy that pulls troops out of Iraq. In response, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was quoted as saying: "Republicans will have the opportunity to not just say the right things on Iraq but vote the right way, too, so that we can bring the responsible end to this war that the American people demand and deserve." Did Reid say he agreed with Domenici and looked forward to working with him? No, he said he couldn't wait to put him on the spot.  Read more...

The most important and least understood event in Washington politics is the strong possibility that Senate Republicans face an epic disaster of historic dimension in 2008.

With 22 Senate Republicans running in 2008, if the Democrats run Felix the Cat for president the Republicans will almost certainly lose seats in the Senate.

If the Democrats run a respectable presidential campaign, the Republicans could well lose five seats or more.

If the Democratic presidential candidate wins in 2008 it is very conceivable that Democrats could end up with nearly 60 senators. Read more...

As a long-term investor in General Electric, this morning I contacted the office of the corporate secretary to the board of directors and sent a letter to be forwarded to the full board. I called for General Electric to put MSNBC up for sale, in a public auction, and to consider offers that are significantly above the current market value of MSNBC.

In the future I might well invite other citizens who might own GE stock (check your own stock and retirement portfolios) to join in a formal shareholder action.

While countless Americans feel disenfranchised and often insulted by current cable news, all shareholders have the right to support formal resolutions that would require change, and to publicly address questions to management and the board of directors at annual meetings. Read more...

This is a big deal, people. No one, not the most ardent supporter of the war, not even John McCain, would consider Pete Domenici out on the fringes somewhere. In fact, Domenici has been as mainstream Republican as one could get over a long Senate career — just like John Warner and George Voinovich and Richard Lugar. These are not crazed, radical “cut-and-runners” by any stretch of the imagination.

In fact they are tiptoeing very carefully as they suggest the United States needs to escape from Iraq. But these very, very cagey politicians are well aware that their tiptoeing amounts to a hard stomping on the president’s argument that staying the course will ultimately result in success.

They are respectfully saying that’s baloney (as I said, “respectfully”) — concluding that the United States is on a course to disaster, and that getting the Iraqis to cooperate may be too much to hope for since they don’t even seem to like their occupiers. Read more...

Armstrong Williams says Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) needs to shed his "elitist" personality if he wants to connect better with voters - something Williams says Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) is better at doing.