Political Glance
The New Republic yesterday published a lengthy piece by Washington Times reporter Eli Lake highlighting how the “Republican foreign policy consensus has collapsed” and that the GOP contenders for the 2012 presidential nomination are, as the article’s title says, “all over the map.”
Lake notes that there’s an internal strife within the GOP over whether Muslims pose a threat to America — with some neocons and conservatives like Grover Norquist embracing mainstream Islam and others, led by Islamophobic conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney, believing that, as Gaffney often says, the nation is close to instituting Sharia law.
A federal judge, responding to an appeal from historians, has ordered the release of the transcript of Richard Nixon's secret testimony to a grand jury investigating tthe Watergate break-in.
Voters have spoken out against recall efforts of Green Bay Democratic Senator Dave Hansen. With 65% of the preliminary voting results in, Hansen is expected to win the recall election with more than two-thirds of the vote against Republican David VanderLeest. 
The Minnesota Republican frequently suffers from stress-induced medical episodes that she has characterized as severe headaches. These episodes, say witnesses, occur once a week on average and can “incapacitate” her for days at time.
President Obama endorses a new congressional proposal to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which basically defines marriage as between a man and a woman. This year, the administration said it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in federal court.
n 1991, Iraqi exiles set up the Iraq National Congress (INC) with funding from the CIA. Under the leadership of Ahmad Chalabi, and flush with tens of millions dollars in US government funding, the INC allied itself with the neoconservatives in Washington and unceasingly beat the drums of war, presenting itself as the popular democratic alternative to Saddam Hussein and feeding faulty intelligence to an eager media and Bush administration.
Hawkish pro-Israel positions have become a litmus test for Republican candidates, particularly in the 2012 presidential campaign. And one of the political operatives driving this phenomenon is none other than Ralph Reed, the disgraced lobbyist who left the Christian Coalition to form Century Strategies.
