Since Bush prefers to spend a lot of time in Crawford, Texas (by one estimation, 20% of his presidency), you’d think by now he’d have impressed the locals. As it turns out, not so much. In June, we learned that Bush’s local mayor wants to see John Kerry win in November. Crawford may be the […]
In June, the Bush administration’s back-door draft kicked into high gear by tapping the Individual Ready Reserve. Amid Congressional concerns that the military is stretched too thin, the Army is preparing to take advantage of a rarely used wartime program that allows it to recall soldiers who have left the service and did not join […]
In August, Bush campaign officials insisted that anyone in Oregon who wanted to attend a presidential event had to “volunteer” at the local Republican Party. Want a ticket to see President Bush campaign in Oregon on Friday? You’ll have to put in a few hours working on the campaign phone bank first. Callers to the […]
Everyone’s favorite domestic debacle — Bush’s Medicare scheme — received yet another round of bad news yesterday, when the non-partisan Government Accountability Office said it illegally empowered insurance companies to limit patients’ choice of care. The Bush administration violated the law by allowing private insurers to limit choices of some patients in a small trial […]
The LA Times’ Robert Scheer raised a point today that I’ve been thinking about for a while. Don’t say you weren’t warned. Yes, you, that otherwise reasonable centrist voter who might be tempted to cast a “what the heck” vote for George W. Bush. Don’t kid yourself that the Cheneys, Ashcrofts and Rumsfelds who mold […]
From the outset, let me make it perfectly clear that I know you know this. But sometimes, I just like to use The Carpetbagger Report as an outlet for my frustration, even though I’m certain that my readers already are well aware of the information. A few former co-workers of mine used to joke about […]
During the joint Bush-Allawi press conference last week, the president struck a — what else? — confident tone about the growing size of Iraqi security forces. “Iraq must be able to defend itself. And Iraqi security forces are taking increasing responsibility for their country’s security. Nearly 100,000 fully trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers, police officers, […]
Richard Cohen relied on his college psychology lessons today to raise one of my favorite points about Bush’s style. In the faraway past, I was a psych major in college, and it was then that I discovered the useful word “projection.” It was, as I recall, the tendency to assign to others the attributes or […]
Karl Rove and the Bush campaign are big believers in the idea of “if you say you’re going to win, you’re going to win.” The aura of inevitability is, in their minds, self-fulfilling. It empowers your supporters and disheartens your opponents. And in Bush’s case, it almost cost him the presidency. In 2000, late-October polls […]
When Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi spoke to a joint session of Congress last week, the rhetoric sounded awfully familiar. Indeed, since the address was a de facto campaign event for Bush, it was hardly surprising that Allawi would use GOP talking points in talking about the war and insurgency. But leave it to the […]