It's a Good Time to be a Democrat

Just a sampling of this evening's news you'll be reading in tomorrow's headlines:

Administration Freed Terror Suspect

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nabil al-Marabh was No. 27 on the FBI's list of terror suspects after Sept. 11. He trained in Afghanistan's militant camps, sent money to a roommate convicted in a foiled plot to bomb a hotel and boasted to an informant about plans to blow up a fuel truck inside a New York tunnel, FBI documents allege. The Bush administration set him free - to Syria - even though prosecutors had sought to bring criminal cases against him and judges openly expressed concerns about possible terrorist ties.

Bush Consults Lawyer in CIA Case

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush has consulted an outside lawyer about possibly representing him in the grand jury investigation of who leaked the name of a covert CIA operative last year, White House officials said Wednesday night.

"The president has made it very clear he wants everyone to cooperate fully with the investigation and that would include himself," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

He confirmed that Bush had contacted Washington attorney Jim Sharp. "In the event the president needs his advice, I expect he probably would retain him," McClellan said.

"I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official [who leaked Plame's name]," Bush said last year. "I don't have any idea. I'd like to. I want to know the truth."

But Bush said, "This is a large administration and there's a lot of senior officials."

Bush Push May Cost Churches Tax Breaks

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's re-election campaign is trying to recruit supporters from 1,600 religious congregations in Pennsylvania - a political push that critics said Wednesday could cost churches their tax breaks.

An e-mail from the campaign's Pennsylvania office, obtained by The Associated Press, urges churchgoers to help organize "Friendly Congregations" where supporters can meet regularly to sign up voters and spread the Bush word.

"I have never in my life seen such a direct campaign to politicize American churches - from any political party or from any candidate for public office," said Rev. Barry W. Lynn of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "By enrolling churches in an election scheme like this, I think the Bush-Cheney campaign is actually endangering those churches' tax exemptions without even the courtesy of telling them that they run a risk."

As I've said many times..."You can't make up this shit."®

Update, 11:05PM - Whoops, missed one.

Democrats Seek Special Halliburton/Cheney Counsel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House Democrats urged a special counsel on Wednesday to probe whether Vice President Dick Cheney broke the law through any involvement in the award of a government contract in Iraq to his old company, Halliburton Co.

For the second day running, Democrats demanded more answers to questions raised by a newly unearthed Army e-mail that said Cheney's office "coordinated" action on a contract to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure that was awarded to Halliburton.

Goodness, I just can't keep up anymore.