We reported yesterday that Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) is the latest House Republican incumbent to announce his retirement, but it's also worth keeping in mind that the GOP's exodus leaves the party in a very tough spot this year.

A swelling exodus of senior Republican incumbents from the House, worsened by a persistent disadvantage in campaign money, threatens to cripple Republican efforts to topple the Democratic majority in November.

Representative Tom Davis, a moderate from Northern Virginia, on Wednesday became the fifth House Republican in the last week to announce that he would not seek re-election.

That puts the roster of retirees at 28, one of the highest numbers recorded for the party in the House.

With only five Democratic seats opening so far, party strategists and independent analysts say the disparity in open seats — typically the most competitive House fights, as voters oust relatively few incumbents — makes it highly unlikely that Republicans could seize the seats necessary to regain the House. The current House has 199 Republicans and 232 Democrats, with four vacancies to be filled by special elections.

“The open-seat situation is so lopsided as to deny Republicans any chance of taking back the House in 2008,” said David Wasserman, who analyzes House races for The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan publication.

It couldn’t have happened to a more appropriate group of people.

David Letterman on Bush's State of the Union Address

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In August of 2006 I told my Andrea Bocelli/Sarah Brightman story but when I went back to check it out today, I see that their label disabled the clip. In honor of the announcements of the 27 or 28 House members-- and a handful of senators-- who have decided it's time to say goodbye... here's a version I just put together for tonight. And after I put the clip together, right-wing extremist Ron Lewis (R-KY) cut and ran.

Notice the nearly three-to-one margin:

"Who do you want to see take the lead role in setting policy for the country: George W. Bush or the Congress?" asks NBC/WSJ. The answer is congress by a 62 to 21 margin. One more reason to think that the weakness and conflict-aversion of the congressional Democrats is a bigger source of their low approval ratings than is any alleged overreaching. The President is very unpopular and people are apparently desperate for Congress to play a bigger role.

Get to work.

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Via MSNBC:

Rudy Giuliani, who sought to make the leap from New York mayor to the White House, dropped out of the Republican presidential campaign on Wednesday and endorsed front-runner John McCain for the nomination.

Giuliani made the announcement at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library a day after suffering a debilitating defeat in Tuesday's Florida primary.

With McCain at his side, Giuliani said the nation needed "someone who can be trusted in times of crisis." Read more...

After receiving Rudy's endorsement, Senator McCain invokes...you guessed it, 9/11. $50,000,000 just doesn't buy what it used to, does it Mr. Mayor? All that cash earned him exactly 1 delegate and he got smoked by Ron Paul in the process. He ran a horrible campaign and despite the best efforts of the media, he DID try to compete in the earlier primaries -- but the more people heard him speak, the less they liked him. I'm sure he'll land on his feet, he may just earn a few thousand less $$ for his "Hero of 9/11" lectures now. By the way, Rudy has attacked McCain as recently as Monday, and he probably should have removed all the McCain smears from his website before he endorsed him.

The field has narrowed, Rudy is gone, Ron Paul remains and St. McCain has the Big Mo over Mittens.

You can stream the debate live at CNN.

Update: John Amato: Huckabee loves his highways. How does building them stimulate the economy?

Romney called McCain a liar over his allegations about the ABC/time table interview.

McCain says "of course he wanted the time table." I wish Cooper would let them duke it out...McCain is distorting his remarks. Doesn't he have the old Bush team that smeared him in SC working for him now?

Is Ron Paul in this debate?

Romney says al-Qaeda is as big as China. OMG...

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The Hill:

Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) will announce Wednesday that he will not seek reelection to the House, according to a Republican source with knowledge of his decision.

Davis is the fifth House Republican in the last week to announce that he will not run for reelection, joining Reps. James Walsh (N.Y.), Dave Weldon (Fla.), Kenny Hulshof (Mo.) and Ron Lewis (Ky.). There are now 28 House GOPers vacating their seats. Read on...

Tom "Doobie Brothers" Davis will most likely spend more time with his family - his lobbying family, that is. The writing is on the wall and the rats are opting out of public life for big bucks while they still can. It's all about cash and saving face -- don't let the door hit you on the way out...

In the SOTU Monday night, George Bush cheered on the "young democracy" in Afghanistan:

"In Afghanistan, America, our 25 NATO allies and 15 partner nations are helping the Afghan people defend their freedom and rebuild their country. Thanks to the courage of these military and civilian personnel, a nation that was once a safe haven for al-Qaida is now a young democracy where boys and girls are going to school, new roads and hospitals are being built, and people are looking to the future with new hope.

Yet just six days ago a young Afghan reporter was sentenced to death in Afghanistan and the case points to the return of both judicial extremists and the continuing power of the warlords:

A journalist in northern Afghanistan, Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, has been sentenced to death for blasphemy in a summary trial in which he had no legal representation and no opportunity to defend himself.

Sentencing took place in a closed session of the lower court of Balkh region on January 22.

“It was about four pm when guards brought me into a room where there were three judges and an attorney sitting behind their desks. There was no one else,” Kambakhsh told IWPR.

“The death sentence had already been written. I wanted to say something, but they would not let me speak.

“They too said nothing. They just handed me a piece of paper on which it was written that I had been sentenced to death. Then armed guards came and took me out of the room, and brought me back to the prison.”

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I lived in the middle of the feeding frenzy during the housing boom in California. I watched as people who had no credit, no down payment and were paying interest only loans were buying $500-800,000 houses and I wondered what the heck was happening.

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60 Minutes covered the crisis as well: "House of Cards"

It was another nervous week for the world's financial markets and for Wall Street. In the last six months, Americans have seen their investments shrink, their property values plummet, and the country edge closer towards a recession. At the heart of the problem is something called the subprime mortgage crisis, which began last summer and continues to ricochet through the economy.

It sounds complicated, but it's really fairly simple. Banks lent hundreds of billions of dollars to homebuyers who can't pay them back. Wall Street took the risky debt, dressed it up as fancy securities, and sold it around the world as safe investments. It sounds like a shell game or Ponzi scheme; in some ways, it was a house of cards rife with corruption, greed, and negligence. ...read on

How were they being approved when I had to jump through hoops? Now we know:

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I've been receiving statements and videos from all sorts of progressive groups and individuals responding to Bush's 2008 State of the Union speech. Here are two reactions that I thought were particularly good:

DMI's Andrea Batista Schlesinger analyzes the SOTU and finds that once again, Bush fails the middle class:

And David Swanson caught something that no one else appears to have:

On the day of the State of the Union, apparently hoping nobody would notice, President George W. Bush posted a statement on the White House website announcing his intention to violate major sections of the Defense Authorization bill that he just signed into law.[..]

He's decided to close the office that handles Freedom of Information requests from Congress. He's left Blackwater free but jailed citizens who reenact its crimes. He's rewritten government reports on global warming. He's blocked his Justice Departments investigation of political hirings and firings, while the former governor of Alabama begins his eighth month as a political prisoner. He's delivered a State of the Union address packed with the same contemptuous lies as last year's, and announced the seizure of new powers (which Congress greeted with applause). And then there's the latest signing statement.

This statement announces in the by now familiar coded language of the "unitary executive" Bush's intention to violate four key sections of a bill he is simultaneously making "law."

CQ Today sums up these sections as follows:

"One such provision sets up a commission to probe contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another expands protections for whistleblowers who work for government contractors. A third requires that U.S. intelligence agencies promptly respond to congressional requests for documents. And a fourth bars funding for permanent bases in Iraq and for any action that exercises U.S. control over Iraq’s oil money."

See, Andrea, I don't think you carried it far enough. Bush didn't just fail the middle class. Bush has failed all of us.