U.S. Senator Ken Salazar has backed off calling Focus on the Family the anti-Christ, according to the Denver Post [April 28, 2004, "Salazar says he misspoke in calling Focus "anti-Christ"]. From the article, "Salazar, a first-term Democrat, said he was intending to call the Colorado Springs group 'un-Christian,' a term he began applying last week after Focus attacked his stance on judicial nominations in the Senate. 'I spoke about Jim Dobson and his efforts and used the term the anti-Christ,' Salazar said in a written statement from his office. 'I regret having used that term. I meant to say this approach was un-Christian, meaning self-serving and selfish.'"
Here's the coverage from the Rocky Mountain News [April 28, 2005, "Salazar regrets 'Antichrist' barb"].
Mike Littwin weighs in on Salazar's apology in his column in today's Rocky Mountain News [April 28, 2005, "Littwin: Salazar loses high ground in Dobson fight"]. Littwin writes, "I'm not qualified to jump into a debate about who might or might not be the Antichrist. From my reading, it's, well, too early to tell. Politically speaking, though, this was a minor disaster. That's why he apologized. But an apology won't change the fact that Salazar has given away much of the high ground he had gained in his fight with Dobson. Of course, Salazar didn't pick the fight. It picked him. Those in the political arm of Dobson's group attacked him in newspaper and radio ads. They said Salazar was aligned with anti-Christian forces. They scolded Democrats for threatening to filibuster the most conservative of the Bush judicial nominees, as if it were a moral issue, overlooking the fact that Republicans had used a different set of rules to hold up Clinton nominees."
Colorado Pols: "The battle between Senator Ken Salazar and Focus on the Family took a new turn today...towards more confusing rhetorical statements. So we thought we'd take this opportunity to reconstruct the timeline of what actually happened in the last week, rhetoric aside."
Political Wire: "Filibuster vote hard to predict."
The Rocky Mountain News editorial staff is singing the praises of John Bolton in today's online edition [April 28, 2005, "Bolton: right tonic for an ailing U.N."]. They claim that Bolton is being treated unfairly, "The smear campaign against Bolton has gone on far too long. If the Foreign Relations Committee can't bring itself to endorse him soon, the White House ought to make good on its threat to force a showdown vote on the Senate floor. The only drawback is the cover it would provide those committee members who've sheepishly allowed the president's nominee to be abused in such a shameful manner...No, the character assassination of John Bolton is an excuse to kill a nomination that mostly Democrats oppose on ideological grounds. President Bush wants Bolton to help prod a dysfunctional U.N. toward reform, contrary to a foreign-policy establishment willing to subjugate U.S. interests for multilateralism's sake. Those opposed to Bolton are opposed to a policy that takes seriously the implications of international agreements, insists on accountability, and emphasizes the primacy of America's own domestic laws."
Stygius: "Arms Control Wonk recently posted a piece by Dr. John Steinbrenner, a prominent arms control expert at Maryland."
Josh Marshall: "There's a fascinating article...in (the) Wall Street Journal about the state of the Bolton nomination. All the parliamentary niceties aside, the upshot is that Republicans may bring Bolton's nomination to a vote even if he doesn't get approved by the Foreign Relations committee."
Category: 2004 Presidential Transition
5:38:50 AM 
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