Article: Busy News Day

Lots of interesting stuff today. This whole episode of going back to the UN for military and financial support is really fueling my Bush administration split conspiracy theory. According to stories floating around, Powell finally decided to make a move, and according to a story in the Milwaukee Journal last week he's got Karl Rove on his side, and this story shows the Joint Chiefs and Condi Rice lining up with him as well. That's a coalition that could take on the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz axis head-to-head. Interesting stuff... Of course Wolfowitz says (paraphrasing, I heard this on the radio) this is not a case of the US changing our position on UN involvement, it's that the UN has decided thaFt backing up the US is the right thing to do. Huh? It was clearly the US who initiated this proposal, and the UN still ain't buyin unless the US makes substantive concessions to the UN.

Elsewhere, Abbas continues to play his one-note symphony ("do what I tell you or I'll take my ball and go home") for the Palestinian Authority. There is incentive enough for both sides to give it a shot, but I don't think Arafat intends to yield any real power, and Abbas has little room to negotiate without losing his US and Israeli endorsement (and with it his entire reason for holding office). They'll try to work things out for a while, it will collapse, and the roadmap will be officially over.

And finally, CSM mentions a new reality TV show coming out, as if we haven't had enough of them. But wait, this one, called "K-Street" is about political lobbyists. It's a bizarre, but intriguing idea, particularly considering it is produced by the brilliant writer/producer/director Steven Soderbergh. The bad news? It's an HBO exclusive.