Daily Briefing: Stating the Obvious

• House Republicans will issue 600-plus-page report on Wednesday that harshly criticizes all aspects of the government’s response to Katrina: “It was a failure of leadership. In this instance, blinding lack of situational awareness and disjointed decision making needlessly compounded and prolonged Katrina’s horror.” [WP, NYT]
• Cheney accidentally shoots companion during hunting trip in Texas. Mary Matalin: “He felt badly, obviously. On the other hand, he was not careless or incautious or violate any of the [rules]. He didn’t do anything he wasn’t supposed to do.” [WP, NYT, USAT, WT]
• Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Tom Daschle believe eavesdropping is necessary but doubt Bush has the legal authority. [WP, LAT]
• Dean says Cheney should resign if he was involved in the leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity. [NYT, WT]

• Sen. Frist (R-Tenn.) will push for a complete repeal of the estate tax this spring: “I will do everything in my power to bury the ‘death tax’ once and for all.” [W$J]
• Congress will not have to abide by local smoking ban. [USAT]
• Sen. Clinton (D-N.Y.) needs to hone her speaking skills. [NYT]
• Republican commentator Bruce Bartlett loses think tank job after writing book critical of Bush. [NYT]

READ MORE: 2006, 2008, Democrats, Republicans, bill frist, bruce bartlett, dick cheney, eavesdropping, estate tax, george w. bush, hillary clinton, house, howard dean, hunting, jane harman, katrina, leak investigation, lewis libby, mary matalin, nsa, tom daschle, valerie plame

Whither Bruce Bartlett?

Remember him? He was the supply-side conservative think tanker who lost his job for opposing Harriet Miers’s appointment, and also for penning a book whose title openly compared Bush to Reagan (Bush lost). Bruce checked in with us yesterday to send along a Publishers Weekly press release. You can call off the guilty liberal pledge drive. He’s going to be just fine:

After The New York Times reported the news of Bartlett’s firing, Doubleday (which is pubbing Impostor) quickly bumped the book’s release date from April 4 to February 28. The imprint has also upped the book’s print run from 30,000 copies to 50,000.

So much for the rewards of loyalty. —MICHAEL WEISS

RELATED: Righty Fratricide: No One Gets Away Clean [Wonkette]

D’day Rushes Book of Canned Bushie [Publishers Weekly]
The Axing of Bartlett [Andrew Sullivan]

READ MORE: National Center for Policy Analysis, SCOTUS, bruce bartlett, conservative civil war, harriet miers

Righty Fratricide: No One Gets Away Clean

The first thing we do is kill all the better-qualified lawyers. Then we sack the think-tankers.

Bruce Bartlett of the Dallas-based conservative brains trust, the National Center for Policy Analysis, has been axed from his position there as a senior research fellow. Now, we’re not saying it’s because he recently scribbled this:

“[The nomination] of a patently unqualified crony for a critical position on the Supreme Court was the final straw…”

Or because he has a book coming out called this: The Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy.

Or because, in a Townhall.com column entitled “Bless the Blogs,” he cited Andrew Sullivan as his favorite post-and-linker, characterizing him (correctly) as a “gay British conservative with a Ph.D. from Harvard,” and then characterizing him (incorrectly) as a former lefty with a therefore keener insight into that particular ideological affliction. (To keep one creed’s a task grown quite Herculean, / Is it not so, my Tory ultra-Julian?)

David Frum moving the family to Fort Sumter by nightfall. —MICHAEL WEISS

In Sign of Conservative Split, a Commentator Is Dismissed [NYT]
The final straw [Townhall.com]
Bless the Blogs [Townhall.com]

RELATED: Bang the Frum Slowly [Wonkette]

READ MORE: National Center for Policy Analysis, SCOTUS, bruce bartlett, conservative civil war, harriet miers

Daily Briefing: ‘Confluence of Crises’

• Patrick Fitzgerald “has assembled evidence that suggests Cheney’s long-standing tensions with the CIA contributed to the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame.” [WP]
• Miers tells Schumer: “No one knows how I would rule on Roe v. Wade.” The White House tries to focus on her qualifications. [WP, NYT, LAT, USAT, WT]
• Conservative “apparatus” built by Rove “has splintered over Miers and broken free from its commander”; “rarely have they turned against a president so normally aligned with them on such a central, legacy-building priority.” [WP]
• “Confluence of crises… has some critics asking whether [Andrew Card] needs to clean house or assert himself more forcefully… before [Bush] is downgraded permanently to lame duck status.” David Frum: “The lesson of both Katrina and Miers is that the system of decision making in the White House no longer meets the needs of the president.” [NYT]
• Bush’s approval rating slips to 39% in Gallup Poll; only 29% approve of Congress. [USAT]
• DeLay could have saved his position as majority leader if he accepted deal to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. [WP, LAT, USAT]

• Lobbying groups say they will delay big spending on Supreme Court fight until the start of hearings on Miers. [USAT]
• Lawmakers are ready “major confrontation” over budget. [NYT]
• Rep. Robert Ney (R-Ohio) is under investigation by Florida federal prosecutors for dealings with Abramoff. [WP]
• Leaked emails “show that the government’s response plan, two years in the making, began breaking down even before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.” [WP]
• Miers expressed devotion to Bush in speeches: “Serving President Bush and Mrs. Bush is an impossible-to-describe privilege… My admiration [their] leadership has been reaffirmed on virtually a daily basis.” [LAT]
• State officials decry shift of billions of dollars in Medicare costs from the federal government. [NYT]
• Republican commentator Bruce Bartlett dismissed by conservative group for being overly critical of Bush. [NYT]
• Emily’s List turns 20. [WP]

READ MORE: SCOTUS, White House, andrew card, bruce bartlett, budget, charles schumer, conservatives, david frum, dick cheney, george w. bush, harriet miers, jack abramoff, karl rove, katrina, laura bush, leak investigation, medicare, patrick fitzgerald, polls, robert ney, tom delay, valerie plame