In this morning's Times, note Steven R. Weisman's "U.N. Nominee Is Accused of Seeking 2nd Dismissal:"
A former national intelligence officer for Latin America has accused John R. Bolton and another Bush administration official of trying to remove him from his post to warn others against not cooperating on intelligence matters, according to Democratic staff aides of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The aides made public on Saturday their summary of an interview with the intelligence officer, Fulton T. Armstrong. They say Mr. Armstrong has charged that Mr. Bolton and Otto Reich, a former assistant secretary of state for Latin America, had sought to press the intelligence community to make its analysis conform with their hard-line policy views on Cuba. The committee is considering the nomination of Mr. Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations.
Mr. Armstrong was not dismissed, but has since been reassigned. The New York Times reported Saturday that current and former intelligence officials say his job was saved at the Central Intelligence Agency in part by the intervention of John E. McLaughlin, then deputy director of central intelligence.
Also note Sharon LaFraniere & Denise Grady's "Stalking a Deadly Virus, Battling a Town's Fears:"
A cousin of Ebola, the Marburg virus has erupted periodically in Africa in sudden, gruesome epidemics, only to disappear just as mysteriously. This time it has struck with a vengeance, killing 9 out of 10 people infected - a total of 230 people so far, including 14 nurses and 2 doctors who cared for the sick.
The virus is highly contagious, making any outbreak a cause for widespread fear and fascination in a world shrunk by international travel and trade. Marburg spreads through blood, vomit, semen and other bodily fluids. Even a cough can prove fatal for someone hit by a few drops of spittle. Corpses, teeming with the virus, are especially dangerous. A contaminated surface can be deadly - the virus can find its way into someone's eyes, nose or mouth, or enter the bloodstream through a cut.
Once in the body, it moves with terrifying speed, invading white blood cells essential to fighting infection. On Day 3 of the infection, fewer than 200 viruses are in a drop of blood. By Day 8, there are five million.
"That's why dead bodies are kind of like bombs," said Dr. Heinz Feldmann, a virologist from Winnipeg who is here working with the teams of specialists dispatched by the World Health Organization, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the international aid group Doctors Without Borders.
Domestically, note Ralph Blumenthal's "In DeLay's Home District, Rumblings of Discontent Surface:"
Patricia Baig, a substitute teacher with a comfortable inheritance, paid $2,776 this week to call for Representative Tom DeLay's resignation.
Ms. Baig, 57 - who identifies herself as a fellow Republican of Mr. DeLay, the House majority leader, and is one of his constituents - took out a full-page advertisement on Wednesday in the 62,000 copies of the weekly free Fort Bend Southwest Sun. It urged demonstrators "who want ethical reform" to rally against Mr. DeLay's speech Saturday night to the National Rifle Association convention in Houston, "to protest the actions of Representative DeLay and ask for his resignation," while adding her gun-owner's caveat: "This is NOT a protest of the N.R.A.!"
The Texas fallout from Mr. DeLay's citations for ethical lapses and the investigations of political fund-raisers and lobbyists close to him has been hard to gauge, but there are signs of restiveness here in his hometown, named for the historic plantation and defunct Imperial Sugar refinery that now beckons developers to this thriving Houston suburb of 64,000 people.
Lloyd e-mails to note Adam Nagourney and Jim Rutenberg's "Bob Kerrey Weighing Run for Mayor of New York:"
Former United States Senator Bob Kerrey, the president of the New School University and a Democratic candidate for president in 1992, said yesterday that he was considering a run for mayor of New York City, declaring that Michael R. Bloomberg had failed to fight Washington Republican policies that Mr. Kerrey said endangered the city's finances and security.
Mr. Kerrey, in an interview, also questioned why Mr. Bloomberg had invested so much energy in trying to build a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan. Mr. Kerrey said it would make more sense to put the stadium in another borough, and that the rezoning of the West Side proposed as part of stadium plan would overwhelm the neighborhood.
Asked about reports from other Democrats that he had talked to associates about possibly running against Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Kerrey at first said he was inclined not to run for mayor. But a moment later, in what turned out to be an expansive conversation, he said, "You know me: I am just crazy enough to do this."
Lloyd, you and I may be the only community members up this early and online. If anyone finds additional stories they want highlighted in the paper, I'll try to do it later (and will do it if you have a point to share with the community). I know this is much earlier than usual but I'm just trying to get this done and get to bed.
The Third Estate Sunday Review's latest edition is up. I always enjoy reading that (even if I have helped with something -- I helped with everything except to the note to the readers this edition). For Times readers, I'd suggest you check out two things: The editorial which is a parody of a Saturday editorial the Times ran yesterday and a sad but funny look at Harry Reid (don't make me break the news to you on the latest re: social security, go to the article and be disgusted over there). It takes his ever changing, ever compromising views to the full extreme and, by making these shifts the topic of "reporting," it allows for some commentary not just on wayward Dems, but also on the Times.
This entry is cut and dry. (Which is what I'd thought we'd do when this site was created.)
But if you want funny, go over to The Third Estate Sunday Review because I believe all of us left it there in the all nighter. (Ava, Ty, Dona, Jess and Jim of The Third Estate Sunday Review; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man; Folding Star of A Winding Road and Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude.)
