Word: levins
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Michigan's Carl Levin and Rhode Island's Jack Reed have spent much of this month in a Washington version of hell. The two reigning Democratic policy wonks on defense issues led a series of meetings with seven other Senate Democrats in search of a unified plan to get U.S. troops out of Iraq. Two of the participants were Harry Reid of Nevada and Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Democrat's leaders in the Senate. The other five are all eyeing a run for President in 2008. Getting Democrats to agree on anything to do with Iraq these days...
...Senate Democrats wound up with two positions. Kerry and Feingold are introducing an amendment that would call for withdrawal of all combat troops by this time next year. The other camp is coalescing around a Levin-Reed amendment that calls for starting a "phased redeployment" this year that will continue at a pace set by the commanders on the ground...
...Republicans are enjoying the Democratic disarray. Majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, echoing the flag-waving rhetoric of Karl Rove and others, said the Levin-Reed amendment "effectively calls on the United States to cut and run from Iraq." The office of Texas Senator John Cornyn gleefully pointed out contradictions in the statements of those supporting the Reed-Levin plan. Dianne Feinstein, an amendment co-sponsor, said on Sunday, "I think it's time to set some timetables." Levin, at a press conference a day later, asserted, "Our amendment does not establish a timetable for redeployment...
...Reed and Levin tied themselves up in policy knots with their amendment, at least they can say they didn't do it in the service of their own Presidential ambitions. In a phone conversation Monday after rolling out the amendment, Reed called the impulse to run contagious and said he had been "inoculated." Levin, on his way to his Ford Explorer in the Capitol parking, joked that his past decisions not to run for President had been met with cheers. He told TIME he and Reed would not be accepting any Presidential contenders as co-sponsors for their amendment...
...confronted with their next challenge: wading through all those applications.The advising office accepted an initial round of 90 fellows without interviews. That move raised eyebrows. “If they’re going to do interviews, they should probably interview everyone,” SAB member Michael I. Levin-Gesundheit ’08 told The Crimson. He added that interviews are important, “especially since it really matters that people are approachable and down to earth.”Rinere defends her approach. “Four to six sets of eyes reviewed each application...