Government says so: bloggers are journalists now. At least if Bush signs it.

The Senate passed the OPEN Government Act last week (which builds on previous reform attempts), and the House followed suit on Tuesday of this week. The reforms in the bill make it easier for bloggers and other Internet journalists to make FOIA requests without paying fees, and they strengthen deadlines for agencies to respond to requests. Contractors who work for the federal government are now explicitly covered by FOIA rules, and a new FOIA Ombudsman will help resolve disputes outside of court. The legislation awaits President Bush�s pen.

Check out FOI Advocate blog —a decent place to read about FOIA requests, rulings, legislation and lore for a few minutes.

Weak. As usual, GOP Senators are keeping Bush from having to veto something that passed the House by a wide margin. This time it�s the fairly progressive and wide-ranging energy bill. The bill would�ve increased automobile fuel efficiency standards, cut subsidies to oil companies by $21 billion, and mandated that 15% of our power be generated by sustainable means by 2020. Those are just some of the many things that Bush & Co. didn�t like about it. Harry Reid failed to get the cloture votes necessary, and refused to force the GOP to filibuster.

Forward-thinking energy bill? Nope. Not until January 21st, 2009. Can�t wait.

I�ve been saying since way before it was cool that Huckabee is the guy to watch on the GOP side of the interminable 2008 presidential race. Of course now that the chattering classes all believe this too, it�s not so novel anymore. My feelings on politics and the state of the nation in general mean that I have to look a little further afield than Tim Russert and George Stephanopoulis for my commentariat red meat, so, as always, I turn to Matt Taibbi to bring the outrage and the right-on jive. Here he is on Mike Huckabee:

Huckabee is a bigger-government Republican who emphasizes prison reform and poverty relief. In the world of GOP politics, he represents something entirely new�a cross between John Edwards and Jerry Falwell, an ordained Southern Baptist preacher who actually seems to give a shit about the working poor.

When you get a guy rolling in who can talk about his experience losing 100 lbs just before he waxes emotional about abortion and poor people on his way to pick up an electric bass and jam with the band, you�ve got the bizarro-world cultural triple-threat that is Mike Huckabee. There�s a bit more to him than that though, and it ain�t pretty. Onward from the Matt:

But Huckabee is also something else: full-blown nuts, a Christian goofball of the highest order. He believes the Earth may be only 6,000 years old, angrily rejects the evidence that human beings evolved from �primates� and thinks America wouldn�t need so much Mexican labor if we allowed every aborted fetus to grow up and enter the workforce. To top it off, Huckabee also left behind a record of ethical missteps in the swamp of Arkansas politics that make Whitewater seem like a jaywalking ticket.

Thatâ��s actually just the next paragraph of the story, but itâ��s a good illustration. Huck isnâ��t just folks. Heâ��s just insane-o Christian folks—one of the types who believes that itâ��s possible to have an â��opinionâ�� on whether or not evolution is true. That kind of thing always blows my mind. Evolution is about as much of a theory as is gravity, electromagnetism, or relativity. You donâ��t get to â��believe in itâ�� or not. If you reject it, youâ��re crazy. Simple as that. If you walked up to me and said you didnâ��t believe in gravity, I wouldnâ��t have the whole weight of the political establishment on my head expecting me to respect that belief, would I? But with evolution itâ��s somehow different. Anyway, I digress. Hereâ��s more from the article:

Huckabee gave an even more damning glimpse into his inner batshit self in a recent appearance at the Prestonwood Baptist Church near Dallas, where he told audiences that Christians are sitting in the pole position of the race to Armageddon. �If you�re with Jesus Christ, we know how it turns out in the final moment,� he said. �I�ve read the last chapter in the book, and we do end up winning.�

Ahhhhh!

As president, Huck would support a constitutional amendment banning abortion and would give science a back seat to religion. �Science changes with every generation and with new discoveries, and God doesn�t,� he says. �So I�ll stick with God if the two are in conflict.� Huckabee�s well-documented disdain for science was reflected in the performance of the Arkansas school system when he was governor; one independent survey gave the state an F for its science standards in schools, a grade that among other things reflected Huckabee�s hostility toward the teaching of evolution.

Yeah. The guy definitely has to be stopped. He�s surging in Iowa, and my feeling is that he�s going to win there. I wouldn�t be surprised if he ended up doing really well in South Carolina as well, given their penchant for religious wackos and the fact that Grandpa Fred, previously the man to beat, has been tanking of late in the Palmetto State.