Kevin Drum brought up a point this afternoon that’s been bugging me all day. It turns out that today offers a perfect case study in the media’s inability to tell Americans when their president is lying. Bush, in addressing the alleged “crisis” in Social Security, told his hand-picked audience yesterday: “As a matter of fact, […]
The DCCC noted today that the “kingpin strategy” being used in Texas seems to be working its way closer to Tom DeLay. Prosecutors investigating whether corporations illegally financed the Republican Party’s rise to dominance in the Texas Capitol are negotiating agreements with several companies accused of making improper political donations, and analysts say the discussions […]
Now that the election is over, pollsters are conducting far fewer surveys and the polls themselves are generating far less interest. Nevertheless, the numbers still matter and, at this point, they’re definitely tilting against Bush. About a month ago, Salon’s Eric Boehlert noted that Bush’s poll numbers were not just low, they were the lowest […]
Remember the divide-and-conquer approach Bush used in the campaign? He’s using the same strategy in the drive to privatize Social Security. At yesterday’s “town-hall” style meeting on the issue: Tuesday’s event, at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium here, was reminiscent of an event in Mr. Bush’s re-election campaign, when participants selected by the administration sat […]
Bush’s first newspaper interview since the election was earlier this week, with the conservative Wall Street Journal. His second newspaper interview since the election was yesterday, with the even-more-conservative (and Moonie-owned) Washington Times. I think I’m starting to see a trend here. The Moonie interview, however, focused a great deal on Bush’s religious faith and […]
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a high-ranking Bush administration official makes a tragic mistake, gets caught, and finds himself promoted. The latest example is Robert Joseph. The man who insisted that President Bush make the claim that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium for nuclear weapons in Africa is poised to assume a top […]
Joe Trippi, Howard Dean’s former campaign manager, has thrown his support behind one of the candidates seeking the chairmanship of the DNC — and it’s not Howard Dean. “If our party is to win in the 21st century, we have to have a strategist who knows how to practice 21st century politics. That means expanding […]
On Dec. 3, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated that he’s among the few Americans left who believed maybe, just maybe, there are unfound weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Asked if he has any regrets about the statements he made before the war that he […]
I imagine it’s quite challenge being a defense attorney for a client who was photographed torturing people. But, as my friend Poppy noted, this argument probably won’t persuade too many people. A lawyer for Charles Graner, accused ringleader in the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal, has compared piling naked prisoners into pyramids to cheerleader shows and […]
Republican majorities in both chambers may have increased in November, but Bush is going to have to change a lot of minds — among members of his own party — if his Social Security scheme has any chance at all. Many Republicans are expressing reservations about the political wisdom of President Bush’s vision for restructuring […]