From Rove to Granholm...

From American Progress:

Think Fast

“Deputy chief of staff Karl Rove participated in a hastily called meeting at the White House two months ago” to coach a top Justice Department official on what he should say to Congress about the prosecutorial purge. Investigators are suggesting that Rove’s attendance at the meeting shows that he may have been involved in an attempt to mislead Congress.

Michael Elston, the chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, made calls to the purged U.S. attorneys telling them to keep quiet about their dismissals. Elston recently told congressional investigators that those calls were placed at McNulty’s direction after he learned the prosecutors might testify before Congress about their dismissals.

Attacks in Iraq involving lethal armor-piercing weapons known as explosively formed projectiles hit a record high last month. “The number of attacks with the projectiles rose to 65 in April, said Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno.”

“World Bank directors put the finishing touches on their report into the pay raise for Paul Wolfowitz’s companion as the agency’s president blamed 'ambiguous rules' for his involvement in her promotion.”

Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Robert Byrd (D-WV) announced they will propose legislation that would set an expiration date for the original Iraq war authorization on Oct. 11, 2007, the fifth anniversary of the Iraq resolution vote.

President Bush told congressional leaders that he would veto any legislation that weakened federal policies or laws on abortion. “In a two-page letter sent to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Mr. Bush said his veto threat would apply to any measures that ‘allow taxpayer dollars to be used for the destruction of human life.’”

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne heralds the Center for American Progress’s anti-poverty report issued last week. “The report deserves more attention than it has gotten,” he writes, “not because it breaks new ground but precisely because it brings together some of the most pragmatic ideas on poverty reduction.” Read highlights or the entire report.

Iran’s foreign minister walked out of a dinner of diplomats where he was seated directly across from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, complaining that the female violinist was dressed too revealingly. “I dont know which woman he was afraid of, the woman in the red dress or the secretary of state,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

And finally: “A high school student got a little taste of what it’s like to be Michigan’s governor — and didn’t find it too appealing.” After receiving a cell phone number that once belonged to Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Katie Kamar started getting about six calls a day for Granholm. “This experience hasn’t given me any political aspirations,” she said. Granholm called Kamar to apologize for the calls she was receiving and “thanked her because she heard how courteous the young woman was on the phone.”

Wrap...