During tonight’s State of the Union address, President Bush said that the “the people’s trust in their government is undermined by congressional earmarks.”

Last year, I asked you to voluntarily cut the number and cost of earmarks in half. I also asked you to stop slipping earmarks into committee reports that never even come to a vote. Unfortunately, neither goal was met. So this time, if you send me an appropriations bill that does not cut the number and cost of earmarks in half, I will send it back to you with my veto. And tomorrow, I will issue an Executive Order that directs Federal agencies to ignore any future earmark that is not voted on by the Congress. If these items are truly worth funding, the Congress should debate them in the open and hold a public vote.

In fact, under Democratic control, earmarks “are down more than 40 percent from the last budget passed by Republicans .” President Bush’s executive order, however, “won’t apply to the thousands of earmarks that accompanied a massive spending bill he signed last month,” leaving in place “11,735 earmarks — totaling $16.9 billion under White House estimates — that were contained in the just-completed 2008 spending bills.”

Next month the Bush administration will begin renegotiating a ‘long term relationship’ with the government of Iraq. According to the New York Times, the administration will insist “that the government in Baghdad give the United States broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law.”

But most Iraqis fear that the new agreement would further erode Iraqi sovereignty and transform Iraq into a “dependent state.” According to an Iraqi opinion poll released in September 2007, a majority of Iraqis have little confidence in American and coalition forces and oppose a prolonged U.S. military presence in Iraq.

- 58 percent of Iraqis have “not very much confidence” or no confidence in the U.S. and UK occupation forces

- 80 percent believe that U.S. and coalition forces have done “quite a bad job” or “a very bad job”

- 79 percent of Iraqis “somewhat oppose” or “strongly oppose” the presence of coalition troops

- 72 percent of Iraqis believe the presence of American forces is making the security situation worse

Despite their opposition, 77 percent of Iraqis still think that a long-term U.S. presence is unavoidable–a belief that is “highly correlated with support for attacks on U.S.-led forces.” In fact, according to a 2006 World Opinion Poll, there is “some evidence that if the United States were to make a commitment to withdraw according to a timetable, support for attacks would diminish.”

Thus as the Bush administration codifies the presence of American troops in Iraq into the foreseeable future, it runs against the grain of Iraqi public opinion, undermines its “democracy” rhetoric, and puts American lives in danger.

UPDATE: ThinkProgress is reporting that this agreement is unprecedented and potentially unconstitutional.

After meeting with military officials, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, opened today’s committee hearing “with an expression of concern about trends in Afghanistan.”

I believe that we currently risk a strategic failure in Afghanistan and that we must do what it takes to avoid this disastrous outcome. We must re-prioritize and shift needed resources from Iraq to Afghanistan. We must once again make Afghanistan the central focus in the war against terrorism.

Indeed, total violence increased by 27 percent from a year ago. According to Retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, the former U.S. commander in Afghanistan who testified in front of Skelton’s committee today, the number of roadside bombs increased by 425 percent between 2004 and 2007; suicide bombings soared from “three in 2004 to more than 130 in 2007.”

The enemy in Afghanistan — a collection of al Qaeda, Taliban, Hezb-e Islami and foreign fighters — is unquestionably a much stronger force than the enemy we faced in 2004.

During a 2004 interview with Canadian television, president Bill Clinton criticized the Bush administration for shifting resources from the hunt for Bin Laden to Iraq and subcontracting the search to the Pakistanis.

Why did we put our number 1 security threat in the hands of the Pakistanis with us playing a supporting role and put all of our military resources into Iraq, which was, I think, at best, our number 5 security threat. After the absence of a peace process in the Middle East, after the conflict between India and Pakistan and all the ties they had to Taliban, after North Korea and their nuclear program…But we basically are dependant on him to find bin Laden, to find al-Zawahiri, to break in and find the computer people and give it to us because we got all our resources somewhere else in Iraq.

After failing to capture bin Laden during the battle for Tora Bora in 2002, the administration is still depending on Pakistan to bring bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri, his top deputy, to justice. But yesterday, during talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf suggested that Pakistani troops are no longer hunting for bin Laden and Zawahri:

The 100,000 troops that we are using … are not going around trying to locate Osama bin Laden and Zawahri, frankly. They are operating against terrorists, and in the process, if we get them, we will deal with them certainly.

While Bush has argued that catching bin Laden is “not a top priority use of American resources,” bin Laden continues to seek nuclear weapons and inspire jihadists. Unfortunately, by outsourcing the hunt for bin Laden to a reluctant ally and starting a war that has recruited and inspired jihadists, the Bush administration continues to undermine America’s security.

Today, in a video on Current.com, former Vice President Al Gore endorsed gay marriage.

“Gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women — to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage, and I don’t understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage…Shouldn’t we be promoting the kind of faithfulness and loyalty to ones partner regardless of sexual orientation?“

While the remaining Democratic candidates, Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Barack Obama (D-IL), and John Edwards (D-NC), all support the overturn of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and civil unions, Gore is among the few prominent politicians to support same sex marriage. Here is a run down of other prominent supporters: New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-WI), Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), and former Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI).

UPDATE: From Raw Story:

During his unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2000, Gore said he supported domestic partner benefits for gays and lesbians but opposed “changing the institution of marriage as it is presently understood — between a man and a woman.

From JohnMcCain.com:

The American people have been alienated from the process of self-government by the overwhelming appearance of their elected leaders having sold-out to the big-moneyed special interests who help finance political campaigns.

From tomorrow’s New York Times:

Mr. McCain said he was raising money on Mr. Giuliani’s home base for a simple reason. “It’s the Willie Sutton syndrome,” Mr. McCain said at a news conference in Pensacola, referring to the bank robber of the 1930s. “They asked him why he robbed banks, and he said it’s because that’s where the money is.”

Today’s New York Times offers anecdotal evidence of how former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani went to extraordinary lengths “to punish anyone, vindictively and aggressively” for criticizing him or his administration.

As mayor, he made the vengeful roundhouse an instrument of government, clipping anyone who crossed him…“There were constant loyalty tests: ‘Will you shoot your brother?’ ” said Marilyn Gelber, who served as environmental commissioner under Mr. Giuliani. “People were marked for destruction for disloyal jokes.”… He cowed many into silence.

Giuliani’s strong dismissal of critical opinion, and emphasis on loyalty is reminiscent of the ways in which President Bush politicized every aspect of the federal government, with devastating consequences. Giuliani should take note: the Bush administration revealed that “potential disaster lurks behind what we had previously assumed to be a grand virtue: loyalty.” Below is a partial list (compiled by fellow ThinkProgress interns and BodyPolitik contributors Ona Keller and Jordan Grossman) “of the White House’s efforts to politicize the federal agencies“:

- Department of Justice: “After the 2004 election, administration officials quietly began drawing up a list of US attorneys to replace. Considerations included their perceived loyalty to Bush and a desire by White House political adviser Karl Rove to increase voter fraud prosecutions, documents and testimony have shown.” [Boston Globe, 5/6/07]

- Interior Department: “A midlevel Interior Department official” received a “phone call from [Vice President Dick] Cheney in 2001, setting in motion a secret move to undermine the science of federal biologists who had said diverting water from the Klamath would violate the Endangered Species Act and devastate two imperiled species of fish.” [The Oregonian, 6/30/07]

- Defense Department: “The Defense Department…has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups.” [MSNBC, 9/14/05]

- Office of the Surgeon General: “The first U.S. surgeon general appointed by President George W. Bush accused the administration on Tuesday of political interference and muzzling him on key issues like embryonic stem cell research.” [Reuters, 7/10/07]

Like Giuliani, the Bush administration regularly dismissed dissenting opinion (anyone from former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil, to General Eric Shinseki, to the NIE on Iran) and stacked the ranks with ideological loyalists. These moves stifled decision making and landed the United States in an unpopular war and left the American people asking for change. If the New York Times article about Giuliani’s loyalty tests is any indication of how the former mayor will govern as president, Americans can expect more of the same from a Giuliani White House.

Did Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) flip-flop on healthcare? During last night’s fiery debate, Obama claimed that “I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single payer. What I said was that if I were starting from scratch, if we didn’t have a system in which employers had typically provided health care, I would probably go with a single-payer system.”

Today, the Clinton campaign released a 2003 video of Obama in which the senator sounds like a proponent of a single-payer system. “I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal healthcare coverage… I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world is spending 14%, 14% of its gross national product on healthcare, cannot provide basic healthcare insurance to everybody…. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. And as all of you know, we may not get their immediately.”

Still, it is unclear if Obama ever believed that single-payer was politically feasible. One would have to read a full transcript of his comments; Clinton’s abridged video, which ends in mid-speech, may have cut the nuance. (For the record, the Obama campaign still maintains that he has been consistent. In fact, Obama makes the feasibility argument in a 2007 speech posted on Clinton’s YouTube page.)

But if he did support single-payer, Obama could argue that, like Clinton’s, his views on healthcare have matured. In fact, Clinton openly admits that her current plan is different than her 1994 proposal and even maintains that her ‘evolution’ on healthcare is “invaluable preparation for dealing with the problems in the health care system today.” From the New York Times:

But now, as Mrs. Clinton heads into her re-election campaign and a possible bid for the presidency, she is trying to recast the political disaster of 1994 as something else: as a badge of honor, as a symbol of lessons learned and, perhaps most significant, as invaluable preparation for dealing with the problems in the health care system today…

Mrs. Clinton’s approach to health care is strikingly different this time around, a measure of her evolution from an impatient agent of change to a cautious senator — and potential presidential contender — keenly attuned to the political center.

The consequences of the Bush administration’s stubbornness and political inflexibility should dissuade voters from supporting candidates who are unwilling to adapt their policies to circumstance. In this context, Clinton’s attacks echo the Republican talking points of the 2004 election. The Democrats should stop their bickering and engage in a substantive policy debate about single-payer healthcare.

According to a recent study released by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) received only 7% of political coverage from January 6-11, “less than one-fifth of what Hillary earned, and less than one-forth of that accorded to Obama.”

Tonight, during CNN’s post-debate special, “Race and Politics,” Anderson Cooper manifested this trend when he stated that black voters would have to choose between presidential contenders Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) or Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) when voting for president. After a few moments, Cooper remembered that Edwards was in the race and added his name to the list. “I guess I have to remember to be inclusive,” Anderson chuckled, to the delight of his panel.

After former Sen. John Edwards (D-SC) proposed that he is best situated to defeat Sen. Jon McCain (R-AZ) in the general election, Sens Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) begged to differ. While Clinton argued that her national security credentials would benefit the Democrats in a face-to-face general election match up against McCain, Obama maintained that his early opposition to the war in Iraq would serve as a “strong contrast” against McCain’s pro-war policies. Edwards claimed that his record of not taking any money from corporate lobbyists could challenge McCain on campaign finance reform.

But according to recent polls, if McCain is the Republican nominee, the election is up for grabs.

- The Diageo/Hotline Poll conducted by Financial Dynamics from January 10-12, 2008:

Obama McCain

43% 42%

Clinton McCain

45% 48%

Edwards McCain

40% 48%

- The Zogby/Reuters Poll conducted from January 10-11, 2008:

Obama McCain

43% 45%

Clinton McCain

42% 47%

- The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll conducted from January 9-10, 2008:

Obama McCain

49% 48%

Clinton McCain

50% 48%