While Christian conservatives are known for several causes—opposition to abortion, opposition to gay marriage, and opposition to the teaching of evolution as fact—another cause is now gaining support among people of faith: opposition to smoking.
Despite persistent suggestions in the media that President Bush has become a lame duck because of his mediocre polls, top administration officials suggest that recent legislative victories indicate he may turn out to be one of the most effective second-term presidents in recent history. "It's so phony it's laughable," said a top administration official of the reports. In fact, some aides are comparing Bush's second term to Ronald Reagan's foreign policy-focused second term, even claiming that the president will have a larger legacy if he gets to pick two new Supreme Court justices and a chief judge as expected. To pump up insiders depressed by news reports of the president's poor polling, some insiders have reprinted a Washington Post story from May 26, 1985, that suggests Reagan was washed up just six months into his term. The story says: "But despite his landslide reelection to a second term only six months ago, as Reagan prepares to make tax simplification his new top priority, he finds himself a considerably less imposing force in the Capitol than he was four years ago." Critics have made similar suggestions about Bush, but insiders cite his recent judicial victories, the surprising Senate passage of CAFTA, the likely passage of the energy bill, and expectations that after a heated fight he will win approval of his Supreme Court nominee or nominees.
As the Bush administration moves ahead with its plan to reform the U.S. intelligence community, White House officials are considering creating a unit at CIA headquarters to specialize in publicly available information. The proposal would address a long-standing criticism of the intelligence community: that it has done a poor job of analyzing what those in the spy world call open-source intelligence.
AP - With a sigh of relief, Gulf Coast residents began hurricane cleanup — again. Hurricane Dennis hit the storm-weary Florida Panhandle and Alabama coast on Sunday with less force than forecasters feared, sparing the region the widespread destruction caused by Ivan last September.
AP - Police raised the confirmed death toll in London's bloody terrorist attacks to 52 as jittery commuters returned to work Monday on the subway and bus network targeted by the bombers four days earlier.
AP - President Bush expressed solidarity with Britain on Monday over the deadly bombings in London and said terrorists are trying to break the will of the world's democracies by killing innocent people.
Remnants of Dennis threatened to soak the Ohio River Valley a day after the former Category 3 hurricane flooded and cut power to most of the Florida Panhandle. Dennis swamped low-lying towns like St. Marks with a storm surge of over 10 feet, Wakulla County Sheriff's Maj. Maurice Langston said.
London's Mayor Ken Livingstone is set to join commuters traveling to work on Monday as the British capital gets back to business after a weekend of mourning and memorials following last week's deadly bombings.
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