It’s helpful, from time to time, to take a moment to appreciate just how hopeless Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist really is. Yesterday, the Senate was in the process of debating a massive defense appropriations bill. Considering that we’re in the midst of a costly war, you’d think Frist would offer lawmakers time to consider, […]
Once the national media re-discovered the Plame scandal, coincidentally right around the time Matt Cooper and Judith Miller ran out of appeals, I’ve been keeping an eye out for newspaper editorials on the subject, particularly from the major dailies. Once Karl Rove was implicated, I more or less expected to see a flood of editorials […]
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * With less than a week to go before the special congressional election in Ohio’s 2nd congressional district, underdog Dem and Iraq-war veteran Paul Hackett received a surprising endorsement yesterday from the editorial […]
Here’s a case study in how the Republican Noise Machine works. It’s almost funny. As Salon’s Katharine Mieszkowski noted, Time magazine mentioned briefly this week, in a larger article about the Plame scandal, that Joseph Wilson and his wife attended a Bruce Springsteen concert last fall. The event was sponsored by America Coming Together as […]
Usually, when we look at poll numbers relating to the Bush White House, we look at approval ratings, which have been on the decline for months. At this point, however, with those numbers apparently leveling off a bit, let’s go beyond whether Americans believe the president is doing a good job and consider whether they […]
The Bush administration, in describing its labor policies, often emphasizes the idea of “merit pay.” It’s pay-for-performance compensation. As the National Journal reported today, it seems to be a concept foreign to the White House when setting salaries for its own employees. The top pay rate at the White House for senior aides like Chief […]
The idea that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is, as part of his investigation of the White House, casting a wider net is not necessarily new. Way back in March 2004, Newsday reported that Fitzgerald’s interests went far beyond just the original leak, and included subpoenas for records of Air Force One telephone calls, records created […]
The only problem with the brilliant news parodies at The Onion is that real life is just as bad, if not worse, than their exaggerated caricatures. Their parodies are, therefore, hilarious and depressing at the same time. Mark Kleiman noted yesterday that The Onion’s editors “have figured out a new mission: print headlines that report […]
The AP had an interesting feature the other day about Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) status as both a six-month veteran of the Senate and a rare rock star in American politics. One issue, the inevitable issue, was the lede. The line forms the moment Sen. Barack Obama is done speaking, a procession of admirers clutching […]
For about a week, there’s been a subtle dance between Senate Dems and the White House when it came to a discussion over John Roberts’ papers from his work during previous Republican administrations. Predictably, the Bush gang said the documents couldn’t be released and were protected under attorney-client privilege. Dems, of course, responded by noting […]