When did the Alberto Gonzales resignation vigil commence? As tiring as we find it, it is hard to imagine how he drags himself to work and back each day. But yesterday's pummeling at the Gonzales hearing pleased President Bush. And Gonzales still has the "confidence" of the president — one of my all-time favorite Washington-scandal expressions. I am beginning to think this means Bush was glad Gonzales was blasted and that he is "confident" Gonzales will see the writing he has thus far failed to notice on the wall.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), not considered even remotely to be a reflexive Bushie, had stuck by Gonzales but had had enough. Before Gonzales testified, Specter said the attorney general's characterization of his participation has been "significantly, if not totally, at variance with the facts." After Gonzales spent five hours trying to explain all the discrepancies and still could not remember important things like a conversation with President Bush, Specter said, "I think we have gone about as far as we can go ... we have not gotten really answers." Read more...

The double whammy of the Supreme Court decision on partial-birth abortion combined with questions about how the Virginia Tech campus shooter got his gun will propel the social issues of abortion and gun control back to the top of the agenda in the presidential race. In both cases, the likely beneficiary will be Hillary Clinton and the loser will be Rudy Giuliani. Hillary, who Gallup has sagging in popularity (down 45-52), clearly needs a shot in the arm. The partial-birth abortion decision will cause women to rally to her candidacy if she exploits it properly. For Rudy, the news is less good. As a moderate trying to make it in the Republican primary, nothing could be worse than an increase in focus on the issues of abortion and guns. While his pro-choice and pro-gun-control record will resonate well with the general electorate, it is anathema to the hardened party base. All of this could stimulate an entry into the race by Fred Thompson, whose positions on guns and abortion are more in line with right-wing views.

The Democrats in Congress are now thinking of making their timetable for withdrawal from Iraq "advisory" — I just couldn't wait to see what they would come up with to pedal back. Should they proceed with their current  strategy, the Democrats' plan will have standards for military readiness that can be waivered and withdrawal dates that are advisory. What does this mean? It means status quo, Bush wins; this sounds like a package of non-binding, Democratic advice on its way to the president. He is The Decider, but hey guys, The Advice Taker he is not.

Knowing they are likely to lose some votes of anti-war Democrats by softening the terms for withdrawal, some Democrats are pushing a plan to keep sending 60-day amounts of war funding to drag this out. But since Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, seems to think June 1 is a final date for Congress to submit a funding bill that won't be vetoed, that 60-day calendar would have had to start by now.

Clearly the Democrats need to drag this veto standoff out as long as possible, but it still looks like there is no way for Bush to lose this fight.

President Bush, still fresh from his recent trip to South America, touted progress in sealing a deal with Brazil to develop its ethanol industry for export to the United States. In a sense this was Bush's double play against both the Middle East and Venezuela President Hugo Chávez who, despite being thorns in Mr. Bush's side, cannot be ignored as long as the U.S. remains dependent on foreign oil. Clearly, this new deal made Chávez nervous. Not only did he scamper to Argentina during Bush's Brazil visit to drum up the anti-American fervor, he dragged Cuba's Fidel Castro out of his deathbed to rail against the diversion of food crops to biofuel production. Antics aside, though, Chávez and Castro have a point: Ever since Bush unveiled his Renewable Fuel Standards initiative — requiring the country to use 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuel over the next six years — demand for corn has gone through the roof, increasing the prices of dependent commodities from wheat futures to pork bellies. Is America ready to pay more for food in exchange for lessened dependence on foreign oil? We'll see.

On gun control, how times have changed.

Not so long ago, the lament was: Why’s it take a campus massacre like Columbine to get any action on gun control? Today, the lament is just the opposite: Why, even after a campus massacre like Virginia Tech, is there no action on gun control?

This is not exactly a rerun of Profiles in Courage. In the wake of the mass murder at Virginia Tech, not one Democratic presidential candidate has talked about gun control. Not one. Nor have but a handful of Democrats in Congress. Read more...

So far, the political class has reacted with caution to the massacre in Blacksburg.  Given the circumstances, that is understandable. While we have seen this kind of story before, the ferocity of the killing is breathtaking.

I was struck by the response by many of the students who were interviewed on television after the shootings. They were all composed, with their emotions held in check. The killings didn’t seem to shock them. As if after 9/11, they had lost their capacity to be shocked.

Has our society lost its capacity to be shocked by these kinds of massacres? Read more...

My question is not why former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) would get $200 haircuts, but why his staff would let him. I know how superficial this sounds, but after all that Bill Clinton went through with his own $200 haircut (far worse because that was in 1993 dollars!), is it something the Edwards camp wants to risk changing the subject to? Now we know celebrity stylist Joseph Torrenueva of Beverly Hills, Calif., flies to Edwards's side to cut his hair. How's that going to play in Peoria?

Candidates should be real people, and the fact is that some real people spend a lot at the beauty parlor. But wouldn't it be better for Edwards's reputation if he spent that much on a bottle of wine? It's not so much that people don't want their presidents to be rich but that they want to think if they give someone the job, he won't ever have cared that deeply about his hair, especially when some women voting for him care not a whit about their hair. I know some of these women, but won't list names here ...
Read more...

All across America today, while we mourn together the tragic loss in Virginia, nuts are buying guns, candidates are bragging they kill bunnies with semiautomatic weapons, and politicians tremble with fear of gun lobbies.

And more young Americans die.

We don’t need another debate about the talking points for and against gun control. We need a serious national discussion to find a way to protect legitimate hunters while preventing any nut case, psychotic and sicko from getting a gun to kill more children.

Virtually every day in Iraq, there are tragedies and outrages equal to Virginia Tech. Read more...

Americans are besieged by crises and upheavals these days.

From Don Imus to the acquittal of the Duke lacrosse players to the terrorist attacks at Virginia Tech, we’ve been bombarded and now our emotions and anger are on overdrive. Every week there's a new headline putting into perspective the emotional rollercoaster we faced just the week before. Are the times we live in today more prone to violence, mass murder, destruction, and injustice because of the Information Age?

One has to admit that the Imus affair and the tragedy at Virginia Tech, which has brought us all to tears and sorrow, have gotten incredible and justifiable coverage by the global media. However, there is one tragic situation over the last couple of weeks that has not garnered the deserved coverage despite our residence in this supposed Age of Information: the Duke rape case and prosecutor Mike Nifong. Read more...