The Pentagon has turned to Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin to coordinate the military intelligence as part of our ongoing hunt for Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and others. Before today, I’d never heard of Boykin, so the fact that he’s helping lead the search for known terrorists didn’t immediately strike me as particularly alarming. […]
The other day I recited a handful of recent examples of Republican lawmakers offering disturbing and offensive remarks about racial and religious minorities. Today I found another example that may be even worse than the others. Haley Barbour, the former national chairman of the Republican National Committee, is the Republican nominee for governor of Mississippi, […]
I’ve got an insane “quote of the day” for you. I saw (via Josh Marshall) that George Nethercutt (R-Wash.) got a little “carried away” after he returned from a four-day trip to Iraq. Nethercutt, who is running for the Senate against incumbent Sen. Patty Murray (D), said he saw strong progress being made in Iraq. […]
Yesterday was the deadline to report fundraising totals from the third quarter (July, August, and September). Before yesterday, only two candidates — Dean and Clark — were publicly reporting their Q3 totals because both did well. Now, however, there was no way to hide the tallies. There are two numbers to consider. First is the […]
USA Today’s Walter Shapiro had an interesting column today about the primary/caucus system and the candidates’ positioning in advance of the 2004 race. While Shapiro’s column had some noteworthy observations — about February primaries vs. January and the importance of matching-funds, for example — he made one historical note that was incorrect. “Historical precedent has […]
How can you tell when the Bush administration is lying about Iraq? When their lips move. I have to admit, I found Colin Powell’s February presentation to the United Nations on Iraq pretty persuasive at the time. It was well-argued, thorough, and convincing. Powell didn’t include the most offensive lies from Bush’s State of the […]
I saw (via Tapped) that National Review’s Rich Lowry has bottled up all of his hatred of Bill Clinton and bound it together in one handy-dandy new book, Legacy: Paying the Price of the Clinton Years. After I stopped chuckling over the title (how does a nation “pay a price” for unprecedented peace and prosperity?), […]
National polls are interesting to monitor broader trends and dictate some fundraising, but the Democratic nomination is a state-by-state battle. Campaign insiders pay more attention to what’s going on in the states than they do anything else. With this in mind, the latest poll numbers out of California are very important. Not only is California […]
If you think I’m a Wesley Clark fan, take a look at what Yale Humanities professor Harold Bloom had to say about the General in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. Bloom, known for best-selling books such as Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human and Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds, described Clark as […]
I mentioned yesterday that the Supreme Court will consider an appeal of the controversial “under God” in the Pledge case. I neglected to mention that Justice Antonin Scalia, the high court’s most active and boisterous conservative, announced that he will not be participating in the case. This is not only a surprising turn, but it […]