Guest Post by Morbo For the smartest woman in the world, Marilyn vos Savant sure says some dumb things. In case you’re not familiar with her, vos Savant pens a regular column in “Parade,” a free magazine distributed with many Sunday papers. Because she’s a super genius — the Guinness Book of World Records says […]
Guest Post by Morbo I won’t be in line waiting to see “The Chronicles of Narnia” this weekend. Because I have kids, I’ve read a lot of kid-lit. Some of it is quite good. Lemony Snicket’s books make me laugh out loud. He loads them up with allusions that he must know only parents will […]
I’ve marveled, on more than one occasion, about the series of scandals tied the Bush administration. But we’ve reached an interesting point in Bush’s presidency in which serious controversies, some of which point to possible crimes, have become so common, they hardly cause any excitement at all. It’s become routine to see a half-dozen stories […]
There’s been plenty of speculation over the years that the president literally believes he’s following instructions directly from God. Seymour Hersh’s recent item in the New Yorker, for example, quoted a former senior official from Bush’s first term explaining that the president told him his belief that “God put me here” to deal with the […]
As long-time readers know, I’ve had an odd fascination with the use of the passive voice phrase “mistakes were made.” Reagan made it famous in 1986 in reference to the Iran-contra scandal, but it’s been used to describe the war in Iraq quite a bit lately. Last year, describing the Abu Ghraib scandal, Bush said, […]
It hasn’t made many domestic headlines, but there’s been an ongoing U.N. conference on global warming this week in Montreal. Predictably, the White House sent a delegation of envoys that, unlike our Western allies, rejects most climate studies and resists a change in environmental standards. It’s the first annual U.N. climate conference since Kyoto in […]
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was on PBS’ Newshour last night for a pretty substantive discussion. In particular, Jim Lehrer pressed Rumsfeld on the idea that support for the war has fallen because the electorate was set up with a different set of expectations, none of which came to fruition. Rumsfeld disagreed, saying the administration was […]
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: * New Jersey Gov.-elect Jon Corzine (D) is expected to formally announce that Rep. Bob Menendez (D) will replace him in the U.S. Senate at a 2:00 pm press conference today at the […]
About a month ago, on route to a stint through Asia, Bush delivered a speech in Alaska at Elmendorf Air Force Base. It was the unofficial kick-off of the new White House offensive on Iraq, meant to put the president’s critics on the defensive. There were two predictable facets to the presidential address: a) it […]
The WaPo had a good editorial today hammering the Small Business Administration for its ridiculous performance, particularly in response to disaster loans. There was just one thing the Post missed. At a recent hearing of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Hector Barreto, Bush’s hand-picked man to head the SBA, didn’t reassure lawmakers […]