Attorney General John Ashcroft’s testimony to the 9/11 Commission was obviously overshadowed by Bush’s press conference last night. That’s a shame. Ashcroft’s disingenuous buck-passing and revisionist history-telling warrants plenty of attention of its own. As head of the Justice Department, Ashcroft has plenty of explaining to do. After all, Ashcroft was cutting funding for counterterrorism […]
When Dick Cheney was on Meet the Press last fall, he categorically denied having ties to Halliburton, the company he led before becoming vice president. “[S]ince I left Halliburton to become George Bush’s vice president, I’ve severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interests,” Cheney said. “I have no […]
There’s been plenty of debate over the text of the President’s Daily Brief from Aug. 6, 2001, and whether it was just “historical information” about Osama bin Laden or whether the memo raised new the specter of a present threat describing bin Laden’s desire to “retaliate in Washington,” make “preparations for hijackings,” and look at […]
For those of you who’ve been wondering what Wesley Clark has been up to lately, it turns out he’s still very engaged in party politics. In fact, he’s starting a political action committee called — you guessed it — Wes PAC. The purpose of the PAC is to discuss national security and make it a […]
I guess Republicans in Texas aren’t as tolerant of cross-dressing candidates as some in the GOP establishment had hoped. Sam Walls appeared to be cruising to victory in his Republican primary race in a conservative state House district. That is, until photographs of him in women’s dresses, wigs, and makeup surfaced. Though supporters defended Walls […]
The New York Times had an interesting item today about ongoing negotiations with Moqtada al-Sadr. Putting aside, for a moment, the historical position of not negotiating with terrorists, the NYT suggested a breakthrough deal may be in the works. A spokesman for the clerics who met with Mr. Sadr on Monday, Ali Adnan, told the […]
I can appreciate that Democrats at the grassroots level can sometimes get upset with the Bush administration and its agenda, but there’s no excuse for this kind of insanity. Florida Republicans cried foul over a newspaper ad by a local Democratic club that said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should be “put up against a wall” […]
If you live in a battleground state, you may have noticed that Bush, Kerry, and the 527s are engaging in a bit of an ad war, desperately trying to get (and keep) your attention. The Bush campaign, in particular, has been spending wildly in its own version of “shock and awe” campaign style, hoping to […]
It’s funny how we now pine for the days when the annual budget deficit was $300 billion. In 1992, Bush 41’s final year as president, the nation’s budget deficit reached $290 billion, the largest it had ever been. Clinton was then elected, the deficit disappeared, and the nation enjoyed the largest surpluses ever created. Then […]
A few years ago, there was an episode of The Simpsons in which Bart was supposed to deliver an oral report on Libya. Bart, of course, hadn’t done his homework and had no idea what to say. He stood up, cleared his throat, looked at the blank page in front of him, and winged it: […]