Maybe John Edwards is the real ‘straight talking’ presidential candidate

I saw the other day that The New Republic was praising Dem presidential candidate John Edwards for pushing a requirement that companies expense stock options as part of his campaign’s emphasis on the economy and corporate reform. As the magazine explained, most Dem candidates won’t touch this issue because Silicon Valley’s high-tech crowd, which has […]

Another day, another round of details and outrage on Niger-gate

The White House has admitted that the president’s claims about Iraq’s uranium from Niger were false, but that hasn’t made the scandal go away. In fact, the admission only confirmed widespread concerns and raised additional questions. I think the admission that Bush was wrong was so startling because this White House never admits a mistake. […]

Senate Judiciary Committee to vote on Pryor tomorrow

As part of my continuing fascination with Bill Pryor’s nomination to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, I thought I’d mention that the Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a vote for Pryor tomorrow. (If you’re new to The Carpetbagger Report and don’t know why I care about this, you can check some of my previous […]

Another lawmaker sees the error of his ways on term limits

It’s a familiar scene: an enthusiastic politician runs for Congress on a “citizen legislature” platform. He or she says we need to return the political process “to the people” and swears that, if elected, he or she will return home after serving three terms. There are, of course, some variations on this story. Sometimes it’s […]

Appeals Court rejects Cheney’s attempt to squash energy task force lawsuit

Just a few months after Bush was inaugurated, the White House created an “energy task force” responsible for shaping the administration’s energy policies. To no one’s surprise, the task force, headed by Vice President Cheney, concluded that we need to drill for more oil, ease environmental regulations, and ignore calls for greater conservation. The interesting […]

‘Niger-gate’ kicks into high gear

The Bush administration’s false claim that Saddam Hussein’s government had purchased uranium for a nuclear weapons program from Niger is slowly becoming a full-fledged problem for the White House. The scandal, if you’re prepared to call it one, took a fresh turn over the weekend with the identification of a key player who was heretofore […]

Maybe ruthless politics isn’t in our DNA

David Brooks, a conservative writer for The Weekly Standard, wrote an article recently in which he seemed shocked that Democrats consider themselves more virtuous than Republicans. He noted that Dem strategists such as Bob Shrum have said, “It’s probably a weakness that we’re not real haters. We don’t have a sense that it’s a holy […]

Karl Rove expresses support for Dean’s presidential campaign

Here’s a story from over the weekend that got a lot of folks riled up. It turns out that Karl Rove, Bush’s brain, participated in a July 4th parade in Washington and noticed a group of Howard Dean supporters carrying Dean campaign signs. According to a report in the Washington Post, Rove was overheard telling […]

Baptist evangelist asks for a sign…and gets one

Imagine being in the audience when you’re listening to a preacher at his pulpit, he asks for a sign from God, and he is suddenly struck by lightening. Sounds like a Monty Python sketch, right? Well, it actually happened last week in Forest, Ohio. A Baptist evangelist was giving a sermon on penance and he […]

Gary Hart on patriotism

To honor the 4th of July, a number of the sites I visit posted thought pieces on patriotism, what it means to be an American, and general reflections that seem appropriate at this time of year. There was one that stood out that I wanted to recommend. Gary Hart, the former Colorado Senator and two-time […]