As Jane has reported, Tom Daschle has withdrawn from consideration to be HHS Secretary.

Which leaves a spot open for someone who has thought a lot about how to get Americans health care and a proven leader.

How about Howard Dean?

If you’re interested, there’s a Facebook group where you can show your support for Dean for HHS.

While I’m disgusted that a third Obama nominee has tax problems (though at least Killefer is withdrawing), I’m just as disturbed that Bob Woodward knew this was coming.

DOJ has re-hired one of the lawyers fired in the Gonzales-era witch hunts. But all is not yet well for Leslie Hagen.

Luskin says Rove will cooperate with Nora Dannehy’s investigation, if asked.

Subpoenas are a remarkable thing, huh?

We finally have a new Attorney General.

The no votes include (I’ll update when the roll call is available):

Barrasso
Brownback
Burr
Coburn
Cochran
Cornyn
Crapo
Ensign
Kaybee Hutchison
Inhofe
Johanns
McConnell
Risch
Shelby
Thune
Wicker

Kit Bond just addressed his private conversations with Eric Holder. And it’s a different story than what the Moonite Times reported.

The Senate debate on Eric Holder’s nomination is on CSPAN2 right now. Tom Coburn is on the floor now pretending that Holder is going to bring back the Fairness Doctrine and take away your guns.

But Holder’s nomination is bound to pass, with large margins, when they vote this evening. So it’ll be interesting to see how Holder implements these highly parsed views, written in response to questions from Russ Feingold, courtesy

I think Dr. Jill Biden should get to use her title whenever she wants. She’s the one doing the difficult task of teaching adult learners, after all.

It seems that everyone running to replace Rahm knows that Rahm will come looking for the seat back in a few years. But no one wants to talk about that.

Every time I’ve raised the 2004 CIA IG report on torture on the Hill, whomever I’ve been talking to has gotten all hush hush, as if even they had to pretend the report never existed. Today, Conyers invoked it as one of the things that a Commission investigating the crimes of Bush and Cheney would focus on.