The Two Big Weekend Stories
The first big story this past weekend was reported in the Saturday New York Times: Big G.O.P. Bid to Challenge Voters at Polls in Key State. Large turnouts benefit Democrats, and the Republicans know it. “Reno Oradini, the Cuyahoga County election board attorney, said a challenge would in effect create impromptu courts at polling places as workers huddled to resolve a dispute and cause delays in voting. He said he was working with local election officials to find ways of preventing disruptions that could drive away impatient voters and reduce turnout.” The Republican poll challengers are even being trained in how to challenge the mentally retarded. Nice.
The second big story was broken by the inside-the-beltway newsletter The Nelson Report, and was picked up in today’s New York Times: Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq. As amply noted by Josh Marshall, what’s amazing is that the real story in this is not getting the focus. You have to go to page 3 of the Times 4 page story to find this: “In May 2004, Iraqi officials say in interviews, they warned L. Paul Bremer III, the American head of the occupation authority, that Al Qaqaa had probably been looted.” Why did the Iraqis warn the Americans six months ago, but not tell the IAEA until this month? From the Nelson Report: “Under heavy pressure from their sponsors in DOD and US occupation authorities not to cooperate with the IAEA, by confirming that all 350 tons of sealed explosives could not be accounted for, the Iraqi’s had to wait until the formal turnover of authority before notifying the IAEA…” Nice.
