Burnt Orange Report

I see you failed to meet your Hillary-bashing quota this week

By Jim Dallas

From the US News and World Report e-mail:

Meanwhile, friends of the Bush family remain unsettled by George Herbert Walker Bush's growing friendship with Bill Clinton. The two former presidents have conducted joint projects in recent months, especially to promote tsunami relief, and have traveled the world together. Confidants of both men say they have become quite close, which has raised particular concern in Bushworld. The fear is that the 41st president might be co-opted by Clinton (who defeated him in 1992) and won't be critical enough of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former president's wife, if Hillary runs for president in 2008 as expected. Some pals who have privately quizzed "41" recently say he cuts them short and says he has come to like Bill Clinton, that Clinton is deferential to him, and he'll decide how to handle criticism of Hillary if she does indeed run for president, but not before.

I believe it was Brian Mulroney that said it's nice to have friends in politics, but you have to have enemies. That might be true. But both Poppy Bush and Bill Clinton aren't in politics any more, so why care?

In other USN&WR news, they're running a story about the current Bush administration's cultivation of a supportive blogosphere:

Senate Democrats and Judiciary Committee minority staffers are miffed that conservative bloggers appear to have more information about Bush Supreme Court nominee John Roberts than they do.

"They've got material out there that we don't know about," complained Sen. Edward Kennedy, who's leading an effort to force the White House to turn over any documents it has on Roberts.

We love the smell of partisanship in the morning... but not if it means having to read Powerline or Little Green Footballs in order to be a fully-informed citizen.