The Candidate Who's Always On

"I'm not a delegate to anything," Fineman says. "Even though there's nothing wrong with it, it looks like they're dangling us all on a revolving stage. I'm not even sure I'm going to be there."

Franken says he is a "celebrity wannabe" and that "this will cause a lot of people to say, 'Who the hell is Bob Franken?' "

Now for the latest news...More leaks about the new plan for Iraq, in the NYT:

"President Bush's new Iraq policy will establish a series of goals that the Iraqi government will be expected to meet to try to ease sectarian tensions and stabilize the country politically and economically, senior administration officials said Sunday."

Um, haven't we heard this before?

Madam Speaker is talking about the war:

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that Democrats would not give President Bush a 'blank check' to continue the war in Iraq, and suggested that Democratic leaders may seek to deny the administration funding to send more troops to Iraq," says the Boston Globe.

She didn't quite say her party would use the power of the purse, just that Bush would have to "justify" any request for more troops.

"Before Barack Obama was a senator," Newsweek reports, "he opposed the war in Iraq. Now that he is one, he says that sending more troops would be 'a mistake that compounds the president's original mistake.' But don't expect Obama--or most other Dems--to try to block George W. Bush when he asks Congress in the coming weeks for another billion-dollar bundle for the war. The party won't deny the funds, and may not even try to attach conditions to them. Obama made that clear last week when I saw him in his office . . . 'To anticipate your question,' said the Harvard-trained lawyer, 'is Congress going to be willing to exercise its control over the purse strings to affect White House policy? I am doubtful that that is something we are willing to do in the first year.' "

In the New Republic, Michelle Cottle doesn't have huge expectations for Hill Democrats:

"I feel safe going out on a limb and forecasting that this year's Democratic takeover will not, in fact, be a culture-changing, paradigm-shifting, watershed moment in modern politics. With a little luck, Dems will tighten up some ethics rules, allow Bush's more egregious tax sops to the rich to expire, and maybe even find a way to start extracting us from the sinkhole that is Iraq. But they will not bring peace to the globe, end legislative gridlock (thank God), or uproot most of the corrupt pay-to-play fundamentals on which Washington operates.

"As for changing the much-obsessed-about political 'tone'? Forget it. (If nothing else, Dems know all too well that trying to play nice with Rove's Republican Party is a good way to get a Tickle Me Elmo doll rammed right up your bum.) But all this is OK, because, even if the Pelosi-Reid Congress doesn't result in the purest, most effective, most bipartisan legislature in history (and, honestly, what fun would that be?), it will still have accomplished a couple of important goals simply by assuming office.