When Condoleezza Rice was under fire for misstating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in July 2003, Scott McClellan said Bush “has confidence” in Rice. When DCA George Tenet came under fire for mistaken intelligence about Iraq in February 2004, McClellan said Bush has “great confidence” in Tenet. When several lawmakers insisted that Donald Rumsfeld […]
Watergate came in Nixon’s second term; Iran-Contra struck in Reagan’s second term; and Lewinsky undermined Clinton’s second term. As Ron Brownstein noted the other day, “When you look through history, you really wonder why they spend so much money and time trying to get re-elected, because there’s a lot more unhappy stories.” The key to […]
How ridiculous was the White House’s scripted teleconference yesterday? Even Fox News Channel blasted the Bush gang. Via Dan Froomkin, here’s what Shepard Smith told FNC viewers last night: “At least one senior military official tells Fox News that he is livid over the handling of U.S. troops in Iraq before their talk by satellite […]
Who’ll be the first Republican senator to oppose Harriet Miers’ Supreme Court nomination? It seems to have come down to two leading candidates: Sens. Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum (R-Pa.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.). Brownback has been the most likely person to seize the opportunity, and in a recent campaign swing in New Hampshire, he […]
Al Gore told reporters the other day that he had no intention of running for president again, but that’s not all he said. When asked how the United States would have been different if he had become president, though, he had harsh criticism for Bush’s policies. “We would not have invaded a country that didn’t […]
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: * Hoping to clamp down on rumor’s, U2’s Bono used an associate to publicly explain the band’s concerts are not being used to support any candidates. Political figures from both sides of the […]
Bloomberg reported today that former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) believes the party’s schism over the Harriet Miers nomination threatens the Republicans’ control of Congress. “This will be the demise of the majority, sadly enough,” Simpson said. Overdramatic? It’s probably a little too soon to say, but National Review’s Byron York offers a terrific behind-the-scenes look […]
There is some irony in the new White House line of attack against its critics. As opposition to Harriet Miers’ Supreme Court nomination picks up, top Bush aides — including Ed Gillespie and Laura Bush — have thrown around the “sexism” charge. The fact that it’s not true seems to be irrelevant. As Jonathan Chait […]
Matt Scully, a White House speechwriter in Bush’s first term, wrote a passionate defense of Harriet Miers in a New York Times op-ed today. Inadvertently, however, Scully may have raised yet another reason to worry about Miers’ Supreme Court nomination. White House speechwriters first learned the name Harriet Miers in January 2001, when drafts started […]
The FDA has been burdened by a series of debacles in recent years, but from a political perspective, few have been as embarrassing as the agency’s inability to do anything right with regards to Plan B contraception. Nearly two years ago, an FDA advisory panel voted 23 to 4 to approve over-the-counter access to this […]