Oliver at The Liquid List — which is a great blog, by the way — came up with a fun contest idea this week. I’m encouraging everyone to join in. Following up on a report from earlier this week that the Bush administration enjoys waiting until late-Friday afternoon to release bad news, The Liquid List […]
Don’t get me wrong, when Bush’s approval ratings hit the low 50s, I was delighted. The drop has been dramatic over the last few months — ratings in the 70s in the spring, 60s through most of the early summer, and 50s as we transition into fall. But I was waiting anxiously for one thing: […]
In many ways, Howard Dean seems like the last candidate who would have political troubles with the Jewish community. His wife is Jewish, Dean agreed to raise his two children as Jews, he’s been to Israel as part of a trip financed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and his campaign co-chair is Steve […]
I can’t tell which is worse — the Bush administration’s diplomatic skills before the war Iraq or after it. To be sure, they were an embarrassment before our invasion began. We bullied our friends, threatened our neighbors, alienated our allies, and told the world we didn’t really care what anybody else thought. The historic diplomatic […]
Talking Points Memo is alerting readers to a terribly distressing op-ed from yesterday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The essay, written by Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.), attempts to lay the blame for our problems in Iraq not on Bush, not on Rumsfeld, not even on Saddam loyalists — but on the media. Marshall is a Democrat and a […]
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank uncovered an anecdote yesterday that is equal parts sad and funny. Bush was in Canton, Ohio, in April as part of a tour to promote this year’s tax cut plan for the wealthy. Bush visited a steel bearing manufacturing business called Timken Co. and said, “The greatest strength of the […]
It’s not that I was surprised by Bush’s sorry-I’ve-been-blowing-you-off speech today at the United Nations; I wasn’t. A lot of political figures were calling on Bush to acknowledge that his administration was wrong to proceed with a war without U.N. consent or cooperation, but I assumed that would never happen. Bush isn’t about admitting mistakes. […]
Since 1971, the city park in Pleasant Grove, Utah, has featured a granite monument to the Ten Commandments. It doesn’t much look like Roy Moore’s rock in Alabama, but it’s a Decalogue display nevertheless. While the park’s monument hasn’t generated a lot of controversy in the past, it may soon become the subject of a […]
Funny how campaigns enjoy an ebb and flow. John Kerry was a Dem frontrunner for the better part of the year, then Dean surged, and Kerry’s campaign was floundering. Now, all of a sudden, Kerry is making a bit of a comeback. Last Tuesday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the most popular politician in California, endorsed Kerry, […]
Call a newsroom, any newsroom, at 4:45 pm on any Friday afternoon. A lot of the reporters have already left and the ones remaining are furiously trying to finish a project so they can bolt out the door. With this in mind, it’s the perfect time to release bad news that you don’t want anyone […]