Morning news roundup: Bush has officially lost all touch with reality, and Thompson is following him

• Iraq

Bush has officially lost all touch with reality. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Bush told Australian Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile just after his "surprise" visit to Iraq last week: "We're kicking ass."

Not only is he now optimistic about the situation in Iraq, but he apparently does not even have any fear that there might still be some minor problems here and there. No, we are kicking ass. The Herald ends the article with a rather sarcastic look at Bush's state of mind. Keep in mind that Australian elections are coming up soon, and Bush is in great danger of losing one of his last allies:



His defiance on Iraq is growing. He implied that those who argued against the war in the first place had no role in the current debate. Perhaps encouraged by the expectation that he will soon be able to withdraw some troops and claim success, regardless of what the rest of the world believes, Bush appeared as a man who has convinced himself he is on the right track and will crash or crash through. It was equally apparent he would rather have Howard, the only other leader from the original coalition of the willing still standing, with him for the remainder of the journey.




• Global Warming and the Thompson campaign

Senator James Inhofe is known as one of the leading global warming skeptics. That questionable credential is apparently leading him towards the Thompson campaign. Inhofe (who is up for re-election in 2008) said recently, "The Republicans will need a nominee for president who is willing to tell the truth, and so far the one out there with the most courage is Fred Thompson. He is aware of all the issues I've raised on global warming, and right now he's the only one I see who is willing to take this on."

CNSNews confirms that Thompson is indeed not convinced at all that there is any human cause to global warming: "Thompson's own writings on the subject have alleged that global warming is part of a natural phenomenon affecting the whole solar system, and he has even compared skeptics of a human cause in global warming to Galileo."
Not that the next president could possibly be worse on this issue than the Bush Administration, but it would still be nice to see some improvement...

The question now is how much such an issue can help Thompson, who is here very much in opposition to Rudy Giuliani, who declared in February that he "definitely" believes in global warming. As for Romney, he has been known to characteristically triangulate on this issue. He declared in 2004 that he was not sure whether there was global warming, nor what was causing it. I am not finding more recent declarations on the subject, so I welcome any further clarification on Romney's position.


• Idaho Senate

Some Republicans are continuing to (rightly) grumble about the GOP's treatment of Senator Craig. Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson, who was supposed to be one of the two favorites to replace Craig in a month, shocked everyone today by declaring he did not want to serve in the Senate, and had strong words against the Republican leadership. "I hope I never stub my toe and they throw me under the bus," he said, before adding, "It makes you wonder what party you want to be a member of." And he pointed at the obvious: “They have people over there [in the Senate Republican Conference] in far worse trouble that they haven’t said a thing about."