Vol. 9, No. 3

Jeff Taylor | January 18, 2006

In this issue:

1. Follow the Majority Leader
2. Bush Defense: Clinton Did It
3. Bordering on Confusion in Pakistan
4. Quick Hits
5. New at Reason Online - Executive Assistant
6. News and Events

1. Follow the Majority Leader

Congressional intra-party leadership elections are usually significant only to the truly politically obsessed. Not so the three-way race to replace Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) as House Majority Leader. The outcome will give a clear indication of where the rank-and-file GOP members see themselves heading into this November's elections.

Acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) is the status quo, "everything is fine" candidate. Blunt has been part-and-parcel of the GOP spending binge. Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) is the "yeah, we might have an ethics-perception problem with various lobbying scandals, and we need a new face" candidate. But he is no reformist. Boehner has cycled in and out of leadership ever since the GOP took the House in 1994.

That leaves Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) as the change agent in the race. Shadegg has at least raised questions about the pace of federal spending and invokes Ronald Reagan as something other than an applause line, which makes him a rarity in the current Congress. Should be interesting.

http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007821

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2. Bush Defense: Clinton Did It

It took Al Gore jumping up and down over the Bush administration's domestic spying program, but the White House has finally deployed in force the argument you knew was lurking in the wings. Bush may have spied, but so did Bill Clinton. Nah-nah. This might be useful in deflecting partisan outrage but otherwise precisely misses the point.

The various excesses and assertions of executive power by the Clinton administration have always been a necessary condition of the expansion of the executive pushed by the Bush team. It is the extent of the Bush push that is breathtaking. When Attorney General Alberto Gonzales argues that it is sufficient that the president's Justice Department's has vetted the necessity and propriety of the wiretapping, he is effectively claiming that judicial input is simply not relevant to any matter the president ropes off as involving "national security."