Free Republic

A Democratic senator is delaying the nomination of Michael Chertoff as Homeland Security secretary to protest the Justice Department's refusal to provide a secret FBI memo on terror suspect interrogations. Chertoff is still expected to win Senate approval when lawmakers vote on his nomination Tuesday. But Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., warned Thursday that the document denial thwarts congressional oversight. "We should make the point during this nomination that we're being denied a document that may relate to the nomination itself," said Levin, a member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The memo _ and the ensuing delay _...

A bitter-sounding Sen. John Kerry dismissed the historic Iraqi election on Sunday, warning Americans not to "overhype" the watershed event. "No one in the United States should try to overhype this election," Kerry told NBC's "Meet the Press." The failed presidential candidate questioned the historic referendum's legitimacy, saying, "It's hard to say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the country can't vote and doesn't vote." Kerry also pooh-poohed reports of a surprisingly high 72 percent turnout by Iraqi voters, insisting instead that the election has "gone as expected." Asked if he thought Iraq was now less of...