Political Quick Hits

• In case anybody hasn't seen this, a New York Times/CBS News poll in Monday's Times found that 83 percent of respondents feel the Prez is mostly lying or hiding something or another when he talks about the current situation in Iraq. If you click through to the poll's details, you'll find that after filtering out the people who don't know or have an opinion, only 14 percent of respondents believe he's being straightforward in describing what's going on. To put it another, six out of seven people don't entirely trust the story on Iraq that's coming out of this administration.

• If you're in downtown Chicago on Thursday, be sure to wear your protective covering--it's going to be radioactive. The Prez is teaming up with Denny Hastert for a fund-raiser in support of Peter Roskam and David McSweeney (who are running for Congress against Tammy Duckworth and incumbent Melissa Bean, respectively). Mark Garrity at TPMCafe tells us that it's a $1,000 a plate affair and that the two candidates are expected to clear half a million apiece. I'll be curious to see how whether this plays out to a high or low profile. Although Denny has been quietly withdrawing from some scheduled campaign appearances, he's set to host this one right in his own backyard. Curiously, though, I couldn't any mention of the event on either Roskam's or McSweeney's campaign sites. (No, I'm not providing links to Repub campaign sites--they're right there in Google if you want to search them yourself. I will, however, offer links to the Duckworth and Bean sites.)