Could Dean’s candidacy actually help Kerry?

The top tier of Democratic presidential candidates has shifted a bit over the last six months. Sometimes it’s included Edwards, other times Lieberman, usually Gephardt’s in there, and now Dean has solidified his position near the top. The only consistent member of the top-tier club has been Kerry. Since Dean has charged ahead, every campaign […]

College Republicans hint at a very scary future

Kudos to Salon.com’s Michelle Goldberg not only for her excellent article on the national gathering of the College Republicans over the weekend, but for having the patience to endure the audience’s vile anti-American rhetoric. I suspect the temptation to run from the convention hall screaming would have been awfully strong if I were in her […]

Republicans’ greed on overtime rules puts American families second

It’s not often, but occasionally a political issue will offer distinct options between helping American families and helping business interests. In the early 1990s, for example, Democrats championed the Family and Medical Leave Act to help families by allowing a worker to tend to a sick relative or care for a child for a limited […]

House Republicans launch attack on independent judiciary

Sometimes Republicans in Congress do things that are so insane, it’s hard to know where to begin a sincere criticism. It’s no secret that the House GOP doesn’t care much for the principle of church-state separation. When federal appeals courts issued rulings against “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and against a two-ton Ten […]

The Texas Tangle is back — and better than ever

Like a character in some bad horror movie, the Texas redistricting story refuses to die. Yesterday things kicked into high gear all over again. The history on this takes too long to reiterate; there are just so many layers to the story. In essence, after some bizarre turn of events in May, Texas Republicans began […]

You want to try that again?

Today’s “Bushism” in Slate was one of my all-time favorites. It isn’t one of the malapropisms that have become infamous with a president who has trouble matching subjects and verbs, but it’s one of those great instances when you can hear Bush struggle to end his own thought. Here’s the quote: “Our country puts $1 […]

Bill Pryor’s nomination and accusations of bigotry

I was going to let this go, but something has come to my attention that suggests the issue warrants some additional attention. If you’ve been reading the site for a while, you’ve seen my ongoing concerns over Bush’s nomination of Bill Pryor to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. I have said, on more than […]

Muslims and atheists won’t see one of their own in the White House anytime soon

The Pew Research Center, which consistently does excellent non-partisan research, has an interesting new report out on religion and politics in America. It’s definitely worth reading if the topic interests you. The report covers a lot of ground, including public attitudes on gay marriage, Bush’s use of religious rhetoric, whether Dems and Republicans are “friendly” […]

Can Dean beat Bush? — Part II

On Friday, I mentioned that The New Republic was profiling two articles about Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, one which concluded Dean would lose to Bush miserably, the other which said the opposite. I’ve gone over Jonathan’s Chait’s piece on the anti-Dean approach, so today I wanted to mention Jonathan Cohn’s opposite conclusion. Cohn and Chait […]

We tried the experiment and didn’t like the results

In the ongoing debate over school vouchers, I frequently hear use of the word “experiment.” We should try, voucher advocates argue, voucher “experiments” to see if they work. The Washington Post’s E. J. Dionne, whom I generally like, had a column about vouchers on Friday that suggested that somehow there was a “middle ground” between […]