Last week President Bush took advantage of Congress’ holiday recess to appoint Ellen Sauerbrey as the Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). The Senate had stalled on approving her nomination because Ms. Sauerbrey has no experience. This State Department position administers the government’s policies regarding refugees and international migration issues and oversees approximately $700 million in federal funds for refugee protection, resettlement, and humanitarian assistance programs. Given the importance of this position, and the nominee’s total lack of experience, Mr. Bush abused his authority by circumventing the Senate.

Although the Bush administration insisted that Ms. Sauerbrey was well qualified for the position, her resume was appallingly slender.  She twice ran as the Republican nominee for Maryland Governor, loosing both times. She served as a representative in the Maryland legislature from 1978 to 1994. In 2000, she was the chairperson for the Maryland for Bush Campaign. Her only experience in federal government is having served as the U.S. representative on a United Nations committee on women’s issues.

AUSTIN, Texas -- The governor of Texas is despicable. Of all the crass pandering, of all the gross political kowtowing to ignorance, we haven't seen anything this rank from Gov. Goodhair since, gee, last fall.

Then, he was trying to draw attention away from his spectacular failure on public schools by convincing Texans that gay marriage was a horrible threat to us all. Now, he's trying to disguise the fact that the schools are in freefall by proposing we teach creationism in biology classes.

The funding of the whole school system is so unfair it has been declared unconstitutional by the Texas Supreme Court. All last year, Perry haplessly called special session after special session, trying to fix the problem, and couldn't get anywhere -- not an iota, not a scintilla of leadership.

Instead of facing the grave crisis that may yet result in the schools being closed down, Perry has blithely gone off on creationism -- teach the little perishers the Earth is 6,000 years old, that people lived at the same time as dinosaurs and who cares if the school building is falling apart?

A town hall forum hosted by Congressman Jim Moran and featuring Congressman Jack Murtha packed a large room in Arlington, Va., Thursday evening, and filled an overflow room, and had to turn away another 500 people. The media was well represented.

Both Moran and Murtha spoke strongly in support of ending the war as quickly as possible and pulling all U.S. troops out of Iraq. Murtha complained repeatedly that the Bush Administration contributes only "rhetoric" and no "substance" to this debate.

"Sixty to eighty percent of Iraqis want us out," Murtha said. "And 45 pecent say it's justified to kill Americans. The State Department's own polls say the same thing. It's time to let Iraqis take over this effort. Let them solve their own problems, as we did in the revolutionary war."

"A number of senators running for president called me," Murtha added. "I told them there were two policies. One is redeployment. The other is the President's 'stay the course.' And they're in between. I told them they're missing an opportunity to show leadership. They're so hesitant to take a position."