You can always count on TV preacher Jerry Falwell to know exactly how to bring people together. Falwell recently urged his followers to “vote Christian in 2008,” and to help drive the point home, sent what’s left of his supporters an “I Vote Christian” bumpersticker. In a fundraising letter, Mr. Falwell wrote that he hoped […]
Considering Bush’s 20-point victory over Kerry in Montana last year, one might assume this is a solidly-red state where Republicans dominate. Wrong. Montanans elected a popular Dem governor the same day they backed Bush, and Dems have taken hold of the state legislature. Now Montana’s Dems have their eyes on incumbent Sen. Conrad Burns (R), […]
Ken Tomlinson’s partisan, ideological, and generally ridiculous work as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been well documented. But as Franklin Foer noted this week, Tomlinson is doing more than just “making life hell for NPR and PBS.” The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is an independent government commission that oversees the Voice […]
The New Republic’s Ben Adler had the patience to trudge through Peggy Noonan’s recent Wall Street Journal column, in which the former Reagan speechwriter described her recent trip to West Virginia. Adler found one section of Noonan’s piece that jumped out. Three hours into our drive west, a police car drove by, and someone mentioned […]
The bad news is the Bush administration frequently tries outrageous stunts that undermine public health. The good news is, once in a while, they don’t get away with it. The issue this time is rat poison. The pesticide industry started lobbing hard in the late 1990s against regulations designed to protect children and wildlife from […]
John Snow went surprisingly off-message yesterday and acknowledged something Republicans usually insist that we ignore: the class gap. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow acknowledged yesterday that the fruits of strong economic growth are not spreading equally to less educated Americans, as he and the rest of President Bush’s economic team prepared to meet today to […]
When it comes to Tom DeLay and children’s charities, the House Majority Leader doesn’t have a great history. It was just a year ago that DeLay created a fundraising scheme that offered wealthy GOP donors extravagant benefits under the auspices of helping abused and neglected children. Now, DeLay has a new initiative — a foster-home […]
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: * Most of the GOP establishment is delighted to see Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro take on Hillary Clinton next year, but not everyone in New York is pleased. Lawyer and Richard […]
For all the political fights over controversial figures getting high-profile jobs in the Bush administration (Bolton, Rice, Gonzales, etc.), it’s worth noting that some of the hires are relatively anonymous, but equally scary. For example, meet Penny Nance, the newest member of the Federal Communications Commission team. Throughout Bush’s first term, the Republican base was […]
Interpret this as you will, but for all the talk we’ve heard about prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s precarious future, Alberto Gonzales seemed quite effusive in his praise for the U.S. attorney yesterday. After visiting with U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald on Monday morning to see how he and his staff are handling their workload, U.S. Attorney General […]