Sunday, White House aides had to scramble when Bush, speaking without a prepared text, falsely claimed that the U.S. government was prepared to “go forward with” a new package of military training programs with Indonesia. Yesterday, Bush had his staff checking their history books with yet another screw-up before an international audience. “America is proud […]
It’s been several weeks now, but the public still does not yet know which two White House officials were responsible for illegally leaking the name of an undercover CIA agent to the press. The Justice Department is still investigating the matter (apparently, under John Ashcroft’s very close supervision), but no word has surfaced about preliminary […]
Yesterday, The New Republic started one of those online debates I like so much. In these forums, one expert on a given topic writes an opening statement explaining why he or she believes their position on a controversy is right. Then the other side goes. It takes a few days and the exchanges are usually […]
Considering all that I wrote over the summer regarding this year’s record-high deficits, I thought it only fair to post the final numbers for the 2003 fiscal year. This week, the Treasury Department announced the final tally on the deficit: $374 billion. Administration critics noted that this is the biggest deficit in American history. The […]
Yesterday, in my “Polls, polls, and more polls” post, I quoted a Suffolk University survey of Dems in New Hampshire pegging John Kerry’s support at 19 percent, but I said that number was down from 20 percent in late-September. It turns out this was incorrect. As I learned in a very nice email from a […]
Presidential endorsements from members of Congress may not usually lead directly to voter support, but I nevertheless believe it’s worth paying attention to how many endorsements the Dem candidates pick up as the campaign moves on. The process I call the Endorsement Primary is obviously helpful in demonstrating what kind of support a presidential candidate […]
I can appreciate that no administration enjoys negative publicity. Particularly when things are going poorly overseas, the White House hates to see disheartening images every night on the evening news. That being said, the public deserves unfiltered news. An informed electorate relies on good and bad news to help reach judgments about their government and […]
Way back in February, while the United Nations was still debating the appropriate course of action in Iraq, the Bush administration was making it clear to our allies that this was our show and we weren’t particularly interested in anyone else’s opinion. A senior diplomat from a country on the Security Council quoted a U.S. […]
National polls are interesting, but the race for the Dem nomination remains a state-by-state battle. Last week, I went over the latest polls out of Pennsylvania and California, so today I thought I’d update you on recent data from a number of other key states — Arizona, New Hampshire, Iowa, Michigan, and Alabama. First up […]
Speaking of Clark and Lieberman (see below), both have announced that they will not compete in January’s Iowa Caucuses. I think this makes perfect sense for both campaigns. Lieberman has found almost no support in Iowa, where voters have largely disliked his hawk-like approach to foreign policy and his ultra-moderate domestic policy priorities. Had Lieberman […]