I’m pretty tired of hearing the talking heads complain that John Kerry hasn’t fully articulated his reasons for running for president, but I imagine Kerry is particularly sick of it. To his credit, I think he has a clever idea to help quash these questions altogether — he’s telling them explicitly. Armed with a five-word […]
It took a little longer than I had hoped, but the Justice Department is finally moving on the GOP memo-theft scandal. As you no doubt recall, GOP staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee stole thousands of documents from the committee’s Dems that showed how Dems worked to block a handful of Bush judicial nominees. Last […]
Earlier this year, Congress passed the first federally-funded private school voucher program in history. Under the $14-million plan, students in the District of Columbia could apply for $7,500-vouchers to pay for tuition at religious and other private schools. Proponents of the plan rolled out the usual arguments: inner-city parents are desperately clamoring for these vouchers […]
Speaking of Reagan, the Bush White House and the GOP are making every effort to tie the current president to the “Reagan legacy,” but criticism of the comparison is coming from an interesting place: Reagan’s family. The New York Times had a good article today noting the obvious hostily from Nancy Reagan, Patti Davis, and […]
After a full week of overly effusive praise, I expected polls to show increased support for Reagan appearing on U.S. currency, as many congressional Republicans are proposing. It turns out, as my friend Poppy noticed, that the opposite is true. Ronald Reagan may be missed, but the idea of honoring him on currently occupied currency […]
It’s hard to blame Rep. Chris Bell (D-Texas) for feeling a little bitter. Up until fairly recently, the freshman House member looked like a rising star for the Dems — a progressive from Houston, popular in a moderate congressional district, and telegenic enough to have a successful broadcast career before entering politics. That was before […]
The non-existent connection between Saddam Hussein and al Queda is obviously Dick Cheney’s favorite lie — he keeps repeating it. Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that Saddam Hussein had “long-established ties” with al Qaida, an assertion that has been repeatedly challenged by some policy experts and lawmakers. The vice president offered no details backing […]
This story just keeps getting better. Two weeks ago, Time magazine obtained an internal Pentagon email that said “action” on Halliburton’s no-bid, multibillion-dollar contract was “coordinated” with Cheney’s office. Dems, of course, went apoplectic. The White House response was fairly simple. An administration official told CNN, for example, that given the subject, the email was […]
If a comedian has to explain why a punch line is funny, the joke isn’t any good. And if a president has to explain why his signature domestic policy achievement really isn’t a disaster, that president has a problem. Case in point: Bush and Medicare. Bush will travel to Liberty, Mo., in a key battleground […]
I’ve noticed in all three of Ralph Nader’s presidential campaigns that the candidate appears to enjoy his role. It’s not just that Nader likes being a spoiler, though this much is obviously true, but also that Nader gets to be a candidate for president without a lot of questions. Whereas the real candidates are constantly […]