Did Cheney accidentally hurt the Bush campaign’s chances with Cuban Americans?

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 […]

At least Fox News knows how to follow instructions

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 […]

Cheney’s trouble with the truth

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 […]

The big losers of the night

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 […]

Polls look mostly encouraging

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 […]

Edwards picks up where Kerry left off — with a victory

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, […]

After conquering the House, the far right starts on the Senate

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 […]

Targeting African-American pastors

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 […]

So much for those Saddam-Zarqawi ties

With all of his pre-war claims having been debunked, Bush has relied on emphasizing Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to other terrorists, other than al Queda. U.S. President George W. Bush [in May] blamed al Qaeda supporter Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for beheading American Nicholas Berg and cited him as an example of Saddam Hussein’s “terrorist ties” […]

Powell is the only one who thinks ‘we’re doing well in Latin America’

Colin Powell did his level best yesterday to insist that the Bush administration is getting along swimmingly with our Latin-American neighbors. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, opening a brief visit to Brazil, said Monday that the Bush administration’s relations with Latin American and Caribbean nations were improving despite recent political turmoil in the region […]