Remains of the Day: 6/27/2011

इ've picked up on a lot of interesting stories इन थे न्यूज़ of late, and I'd like to comment on a few of them really quickly. First off, Republican dynamo Chris Christie appeared on "Meet the Press" yesterday. Here's the video:

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Now, David Gregory is not a good interviewer, but this was a terrific performance by Christie. His answers were direct and to-the-point; the only dodge I caught was his answer to the Afghanistan question. Basically, Gregory asked Christie if he thought that the president was "pulling troops out too fast," and the Gov said:

You know, David, as the governor of New Jersey, I got to tell you, I'm not going
to put my judgment in place of the president of the United States who is
briefed on this much more extensively than I am. And so I'm just not going
to go there with that.

He also said that Obama "knows a lot more about this than I do. I'm not going to go down that road." Am I the only one who thought he did that on purpose? Surely an astute guy like Christie has formed an opinion about our ongoing operations in Afghanistan. Not sharing it when prompted sure seems like a clever way to further convince skeptics that he has no interest in running for president.

Also, I must express my frustration with FOX News's excessive coverage of the Casey Anthony trial. I actually turned to MSNBC multiple times this week to quench my thirst for news and analysis of topics I want to see/hear more about. Get it together, FOX!

Lastly, in a follow-up to something I wrote about earlier this month, the Generic Congressional Ballot continues to provide comfort to Republicans. Every Generic Ballot poll I’ve seen in recent weeks has the GOP tied with or leading the Dems. The only exception was a Democracy Corps survey that gave the Democrats a statistically insignificant one-point lead (46%-45%). Now, the latest Democracy Corps poll finds the GOP leading the Democrats by three points, 47%-44%. This is further evidence that the Democrats’ cowardly, cynical attempts to demagogue the Republicans on entitlement reform and other issues are not working.

In other news:

• Much to my dismay, former Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams has abandoned his bid for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Williams will instead run for the House of Representatives in the newly created 33rd Congressional District, which actually includes my hometown of Arlington.


• A poll by the Des Moines Register finds Michele Bachmann रुन्निंग नेक्क-एंड-नेक्क with Mitt Romney in Iowa.


• Former Illinois governor and Big Boy model Rod Blagojevich was found guilty on 17 of 20 counts Monday, including trying to auction off Barack Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat in 2008.


• GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain tells FOX News's Juan Williams that he was "not offended" by Jon Stewart's ignorant, borderline racist impression of him but insists that Stewart doesn't like him because he's "an American black conservative."


• Speaking of ignorant bigots, David Carr.