Must Reads: Republican B-Listers Clash in Kooky Presidential Debate
Harriet Miers, Pakistan’s Woman In Washington
You may remember Harriet Miers as George W. Bush’s abortive supreme court nominee. Gawker’s John Cook unearths lobbying documents that reveal the new life she’s made for herself — as Pakistan’s top lobbyist in Washington. “Pakistan chose its counsel wisely,” writes Cook of the Bush loyalist “whose brilliant legal mind was simply too supple to be confined to the nation’s highest court …. The lady is a dynamo.” [Gawker]
A Truthy Fictional Take on Bin Laden Raid
There have been many reports in the days since Osama bin Laden got whacked. But you haven’t read a recap as emotionally satisfying or, damn it, true as novelist Walter Kirn’s “Harvard Law Review, First Blood.” Just a taste: “The room full of soiled bedclothes where the arch fiend codenamed ‘Geronimo’ mounted his last stand — or fell without a fight, we can’t be sure — looked like the crib of a meth-head petty thief ducking the pepper-spray goons of Dog the Bounty Hunter.” [Walter Kirn’s Permanent Morning]
Al Qaeda Plot for 9/11/11 Disrupted?
U.S. officials now say that the raid on bin Laden’s compound uncovered (at least the seeds of) a terrorist strike planned for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 — this time targeting American trains. According to a leaked FBI bulletin: “As one option, al-Qa’ida was looking into trying to tip a train by tampering with the rails so that the train would fall off the track at either a valley or a bridge.” [ABC News]
GOP JV Team Debates In Dixie
The march to the GOP 2012 nomination began in Greenville, South Carolina, last night featuring what looked to all the world like five future also-rans in a fractious and unorthodox debate. Those who turned into Fox News for the spectacle were treated to Rick Santorum denouncing the perils of “radical feminism” and Ron Paul getting cheered for advocating legal heroin. Not even party leaders tried to spin this as a good night for the GOP: “As we all know, there are numerous other candidates that are looking at it,” said party chair Reince Preibus, “and thank God.” [New York Times]