The NYT article I was writing about earlier included one stunning paragraph that seems to have gone largely unnoticed. For the first time, military officers also disclosed that the United States could begin withdrawing its 138,000 troops from Iraq in July, if Iraqi security forces have established control and the threats plaguing Iraq now have […]
Isn’t early voting great? * In Florida, 30% of registered voters said they already had cast their ballots, using early voting sites and absentee ballots. They supported Kerry 51% to 43%. * In population-rich south Florida, a Miami Herald poll Sunday showed that among the 16% of voters who cast ballots early, Kerry drew 56%, […]
Colin Powell, who seems to have been at odds with the White House’s foreign policies from the beginning, now appears to believe Iraqi insurgents are winning. For months the American people have heard, from one side, promises to “stay the course” in Iraq (George W. Bush); and from the other side, equally vague plans for […]
Here’s another story from the weekend that shouldn’t get lost in the shuffle. A comprehensive four-year study of warming in the Arctic shows that heat-trapping gases from tailpipes and smokestacks around the world are contributing to profound environmental changes, including sharp retreats of glaciers and sea ice, thawing of permafrost and shifts in the weather, […]
The Wall Street Journal had a round-up piece on how several foreign governments perceive the American presidential election, but there was one interesting nugget that stood out. It appears that French President Jacques Chirac, despite his “differences” with Bush over the years, sees a big silver lining to a second Bush term. For Mr. Chirac, […]
Congress has already committed billions of dollars to Iraq, necessary to help fight the insurgency, rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure, and bring some semblance of stability to the country’s economy. And yet, the Bush administration has only spent a fraction of the money. After more than a year of difficulties, the pace of contracting for Iraqi reconstruction […]
One of the weekend’s stranger stories was generated by the dumbest legal complaint since Al Franken was sued for using “fair and balanced.” The National Republican Congressional Committee has filed a seven-page complaint letter with the Federal Elections Commission alleging the hosts of a popular talk radio show have illegally colluded with a Democratic candidate […]
Over the summer, it wasn’t unusual to hear pundits predict that worsening conditions in Iraq would change the dynamics of the Bush-Kerry race. High American casualties, we were told, would throw the campaigns, especially Bush’s, off-message and bump campaign news from the headlines. It seems the opposite is now true. Consider Saturday’s tragedies. Nine U.S. […]
Bush was on NBC’s Dateline yesterday with Tom Browkaw and while the interview didn’t generate any real news, there was one noteworthy exchange. Brokaw: “Mr. President in the opening of his debate, Dick Cheney, your vice president, said that if I had it to recommend all over again, I would recommend exactly the same course […]
I realize I’m about three days late on this (the woes of weekday-only blogging), but I wanted to weigh in for a moment on Osama bin Laden’s latest video. The spinning was instantaneous and, as it turns out, largely unnecessary. For those of us anxious to see a Kerry victory tomorrow, the tape was a […]