News of the day

A new accusation against Donald Rumsfeld says he ordered a prisoner held off the books in violation of international law.


Plus, Has the Republican Congress lived up to its 'Contract with America'?

...in the late 1980s, a Republican congressman from Wyoming named Dick Cheney called the House speaker "a heavy-handed son of a bitch" and accused him of doing "anything he can to win at any price, including ignoring the rules, bending rules, writing rules, denying the House the opportunity to work its will."
Now vice president, Cheney is no longer complaining. But Democrats are.

The Note is not archived, as far as I've ever been able to figure out, so here's another quote from today's edition:

It might SEEM like a slow and steamy summer day, but all over the place, the unbelievable is happening.

To wit:

For insiders and GOP-savvy members of the Gang of 500, the most unbelievable passage to appear in any newspaper in America in ages is this from today's Washington Post story about how John McCain (who co-chairs the president's re-election campaign in Arizona) will unbelievably campaign with the president at the end of this week!!

(And they go on in this vein for some time.) Apparently the reason it's so freaking unbelievable is because Karl Rove had a big blowup with McCain's senior advisor over the 2000 campaign. I didn't know Rove ever mended fences with anybody, so maybe they're right with the "unbelievable!" at that.