Just POlitics

Powell speaks

The News Telegraph is reporting on how there really was a rift between Colin Powell and Sec. Don Rumsfeld:

Admitting that Mr Rumsfeld's controversial plan to fight the war with limited troop numbers had been an outstanding success, Mr Powell said the "nation building" that followed had been deeply flawed.

There had been "enough troops for war but not for peace, for establishing order. My own preference would have been for more forces after the conflict."

Egypt shunned

The arrest of Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nour of the liberal Tomorrow Party has resulted in Condolezza Rice canceling a visit to Egypt. The Secretary had visited with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit in Washington over the issue. The Egyptians tried to be the first to cancel a scheduled visit to the region to discuss Palestine’s future. However, reports indicate that everyone is aware diplomatically that Egypt has been shunned for its actions.

Nour is reported to have been brutally interrogated, and the Egyptian Human Rights Organization has issued a statement warning that his life is in danger.

Reaction has already begun with a call from Egypt’s President Mubarak calling for free and open elections for President.

"The president will be elected through direct, secret balloting, opening the opportunity for political parties to run in the presidential elections and providing guarantees that allow more than one candidate for the people to choose from with their own will," Mubarak said, speaking live on television before an audience at the University of Menoufiya in the Egyptian delta.

Nour is the only likely opponent that could beat Mubarak according to experts on Egyptian politics.

Newt on Social Security Reform:

"As a practicing politician, you can't get the American people worried about 2018," Newt Gingrich said. "If I called you and said, '10 years from today your roof is going to need (to be) fixed, would you like to sign the contract this afternoon?' You'd say to me, 'How about calling me back in nine years, 10 months."'

"The urgency ought to be simpler," Gingrich said. "Every day young people are denied the opportunity to have a personal Social Security savings account, they are cheated out of that day's compound interest."