The LA Times’ Mark Barabak had a news analysis piece today that seems completely right, but terribly odd. As Iraq descends into chaos, President Bush is facing a political reality that once seemed implausible, one in which setbacks on the defense and foreign policy front are crowding out good economic news at home. The sights […]
In case you haven’t seen it, a CBS News report about Republican frustration with the White House’s failures in Iraq, which is making the rounds online today, is as interesting as it sounds. President Bush is facing increasing dissent among leading conservative politicians and pundits in the face of mounting U.S. casualties in Iraq. The […]
I know this isn’t particularly important, but I feel compelled to weigh in. Jimmy Breslin, a Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist for Newsday, wrote a column for yesterday’s paper in which he relayed a story about bizarre anti-gay rhetoric he encountered from religious leaders at the 1992 Republican National Convention. [Cardinal] Egan was there shoulder-to-shoulder with Jerry […]
When Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) announced that he would not seek re-election this year, it was supposed to open up a divisive process whereby both parties would have crowded fields of candidates hoping to replace him. It didn’t work out that way, at least at first. Among the Dems, everyone cleared the field for […]
The speech Condi Rice was going to deliver on Sept. 11, 2001, was, the White House said, “confidential” and therefore off-limits to the 9/11 Commission. The White House has refused to provide the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with a speech that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was to have delivered […]
Following up on the story about the White House withholding Clinton-era counterterrorism materials from the 9/11 Commission, we’re closer to a resolution. As you no doubt recall, the Bush administration blocked thousands of pages of foreign policy and counterterrorism documents from release to the Commission. Once discovered, the White House argued that the the withheld […]
When Rand Beers, Bush’s special assistant to the president for combating terrorism at the National Security Council, resigned in frustration over the administration’s attitude about the terrorist threat, he was dismissed as a disgruntled partisan. When Richard Clarke, Bush’s principle counterterrorism czar, came forward to criticize the White House for not taking the threat seriously, […]
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was in Mississippi yesterday, speaking to students about the Constitution as a “brilliant piece of work.” “The Constitution of the United States is extraordinary and amazing,” Scalia said. “People just don’t revere it like they used to.” Ironically, around the time Scalia was praising a document that protects the freedom […]
Before the Bush administration launched the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the president laid out a series of reasons the threat required immediate military action. The reasons — all of them — were stunningly wrong. Iraq had not acquired uranium for a nuclear weapon; it did not have vast stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction; there […]
The Christian Coalition used to be a very serious threat. With a huge budget and a vast army of dedicated conservative activists, the Coalition had the means, clout, and credibility to pursue a fierce religious right agenda. In fact, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that in the mid-1990s, the Christian Coalition was […]