I know it’s a competitive category, but I feel compelled to nominate the decision to bar France, Germany, Canada, and Russia from Iraq reconstruction contracts as The Dumbest Thing The Bush White House Has Done Lately. It’s tough to choose sometimes, but this one really is breathtaking. Bush personally began defending the move yesterday, though, […]
In the 2000 election, Al Gore only lost one state in the Northeast — New Hampshire, where he came up just 7,000 votes short. As has been well documented, a Gore victory in the Granite State would have been enough to win the election, even without Florida. Going into 2004, Dems have been looking at […]
Bush’s Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad, which seemed like a public relations coup at the time, is quickly turning into yet another debacle for the White House. First, Bush had to deal with a few headaches after we learned that the picture-perfect turkey the president was holding for the cameras was just a prop. Then, the […]
Ralph Nader (I-Fantasy Land) is following up rumors about his pending 2004 candidacy with interviews hinting that he will, in fact, run. On CNN yesterday, Nader sounded like a candidate. “We’re testing the waters,” Nader said. “It’s a high probability, but that is yet to be determined.” Noting that Nader has already formed an exploratory […]
Of all the major Democratic presidential candidates, there’s one thing that catapulted Howard Dean to the top — opposition to war in Iraq. To be sure, Dean has other political strengths and has inspired his followers. From my perspective, however, Dean was able to overcome his initial obstacles as a presidential candidate by reminding primary […]
Yesterday we learned that the Bush administration, desperate to show the world that it never learns from its mistakes, was prohibiting French, German, and Russian companies from competing for $18.6 billion in contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq. The Pentagon argued that barring these countries from participating was part of an effort to protect “the […]
A few days ago, in our ongoing search for the person responsible for offering Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) a bribe in exchange for his vote on the Medicare bill, we went through some of the usual suspects. A case could be made that House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader Tom DeLay, or HHS Secretary Tommy […]
We’re still over a month away from seeing a single voter casts a single vote, but already Wesley Clark has won a key primary — the Rock the Vote candidates’ video contest. Last month, Rock the Vote and CNN co-hosted a candidates’ forum in Boston. As part of the event, all of the candidates were […]
We can now add the Mobile Register to the list of newspapers deeply troubled by the attempted bribe of Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) on the House floor during the Medicare vote. The Register ran an editorial today calling on the House Ethics Committee and the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute those responsible. “Rep. Smith […]
Just to update readers on a story I mentioned last week, the Pagan community is still livid about the White House “faith-based” czar’s comments in an online chat about tending to the needs of the poor. To review, Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, participated in a recent […]