Kondoleeza Kickback?
snichols takes it as an encouraging sign that yesterday all eight Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted against confirming White House counsel Albert Gonzales as Attorney General.
Judging from the strong and unequivocal quality by which (traditional swing votress) Senator Diane Feinstein of California voiced her concerns with Gonzales, snichols detects a possible kickback from the combined power of her sisterly suckup to now SS Rice through the committee last week with her decision to run for re-election–Feinstein apparently was indundated by thousands of calls protesting her Rice-uh oh (pronounced “risotto”) (snichols’ call among them).
Feinstein apparently distinguishes the 2 positions with a belief that AG requires “perceived independence” while the SS does not. See SF Chronicle for full story. Could a filibuster on a cabinet appointment be in the offing?
Meanwhile here in Cah-lee-4-knee-a, Schwarzenegger’s poll numbers are dropping (not as quickly as snow in the high sierras, but they are falling).
After briefly trying to figure out whether you were implying that money changed hands between Rice and Feinstein in exchange for Feinstein supporting Rice, I realized you were using “kickback” in the other sense — a “sharp, violent reaction.” Given how often the term “kickback” is used in the “paid off” sense, especially in politics, there’s gotta be a better term to describe reactions of the sort Feinstein stirred up. But I can’t think of one right now.
Vince