Senators: Vets Need New GI Bill

Senator unlikely to restore reputation

(NEWSER) - Legally, Ted Stevens is off the hook. But it's unlikely he'll be able to regain his stature, or the Senate honors he might otherwise have been afforded, Laurie Kellman writes for the AP. His peers were notably restrained in response to yesterday's news that Justice is likely to void the Alaska Republican's conviction on failure to report gifts because of prosecutorial misconduct. "Boy, how do you get your reputation back when you've been so smeared?" asked Orrin Hatch, conspicuously not offering to lead the charge. More»

Cheney's delightful brand of unrepentant evil simply unequaled

(NEWSER) - The election is over, a political era is ending, and a number of this year's frequent headline-makers will step out of the spotlight in 2009. Politico gets misty-eyed about its favorites:

• Dick Cheney: Who else would tell a senior senator to “go f*** himself”? Who else, when asked about the public’s disapproval of his foreign policy, would respond, “So what?”

(NEWSER) - Jury selection began today in the corruption trial of Ted Stevens, the first US senator in over 20 years to face a criminal trial, reports WTUU of Anchorage. The list of 200-plus possible witnesses at the Alaska Republican's trial, in federal court in Washington, DC, includes Colin Powell as well as Democrats Ted Kennedy, Daniel Inouye, and Patrick Leahy, the AP reports. More»

Question haunts congressional hearings

(NEWSER) - When David Petraeus led the 101st Airborne into Iraq in 2003, he made a rhetorical request: "Tell me how this ends." That question hung in the air during 2 days of testimony before Congress. McClatchy's Newspapers' Warren Strobel summarizes press sentiment when he concludes that the general failed to answer it. More»

Webb's proposal tests congress's support for pullout plans

(NEWSER) - The Senate failed to push through an amendment to a military appropriations bill that would have drastically cut troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, effectively slicing the number of troops on the ground. The measure, cosponsored by Virginia Democrat Jim Webb and increasingly fractious Republican Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, fell 4 votes short of the 60 needed to amend. More»