Usually, when Bush is speaking from a script, he’s less inclined to make nonsensical arguments. When he’s giving a “significant speech,” as the White House described today’s speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Bush is usually on the top of his game. But Bush’s primary argument today — that John Kerry is wrong about Iraq — was […]
I’m beginning to think the Bush campaign just can’t think of a good response to the charges that the administration let Osama bin Laden slip through our grasp at Tora Bora. Kerry hammered away at this last week and Edwards followed up last night. “[W]e had Osama bin Laden cornered at Tora Bora. We had […]
This may seem like a minor point in the grand scheme of things, but I’m pretty sure Dick Cheney accidentally explained last night why he’s opposed to the U.S. embargo against Cuba. Ifill: Mr. Vice President, in June of 2000 when you were still CEO of Halliburton, you said that U.S. businesses should be allowed […]
The Fox News Channel clearly isn’t good at reporting the news, but I think we’ve finally discovered what the network does well: follow the instructions sent to them by the Bush campaign. As Ryan Lizza noticed, the Bush campaign sent out the following message to BC04 “surrogates”: We will be sending more talking points later […]
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a national figure tell so many lies in such a short period of time as I did last night. Dick Cheney’s reputation as a dishonest attack-dog is well-deserved, but he was in rare form last night. I counted 11 doozies, but there were no doubt more. Whopper #1: “[I]n […]
Usually, one would look to the actual participants in trying to decide who was hurt most by a debate. Not last night. There were two big losers from the VP debate — one was on the stage, one wasn’t, but neither were Edwards or Cheney. The Big Loser Runner-Up was PBS’s Gwen Ifill, whose questions […]
I saw a decisive Edwards victory in Cleveland, but what was the general reaction from everyone else? At this point, the polls appear mixed. ABC News showed it relatively close: Cheney 43%, Edwards 35%, Tie 19%. But, the sample included more Republicans than Democrats (38%-31%), so that’s to be expected. Perhaps most importantly, before the […]
It’d be an exaggeration to say that John Edwards embarrassed Dick Cheney the way John Kerry humbled Bush last week, but I nevertheless believe Edwards won decisively last night. It was a tale of two halves, both of which were bad for Cheney, though one was much worse than the other. In the first half, […]
The Hill had an interesting item today about how conservative activists, now that they’ve completely taken over the House and drive the chamber’s agenda, are laying the groundwork for similar influence in the Senate. This morning, in a nondescript room in the Russell Building, some of Capitol Hill’s top conservative staffers and lobbyists will meet […]
The New York Times had a report today noting that the Bush campaign has gone out of its way to reach out to African-American pastors for political support. The Times suggested that it’s had some effect. [The Rev. Walter Humphrey, pastor of two mostly black churches in Akron, Ohio, and Oakland, Calif.,] and about 20 […]