When it comes to convincing Americans that there’s an ongoing “war on Christmas,” John Gibson, Bill O’Reilly, Jerry Falwell, and others rely on a series of horror stories that are supposed to prove that too many public officials and commercial outlets have gone to outrageous lengths to undermine the “reason for the season.” Some of […]
Way back in May 2004, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) admitted what had become painfully obvious. “We Republicans have never quite reached the level of competent oversight that the Democrats developed over their 40 years that they controlled Congress,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Senate Finance Committee chairman and one of the few Republicans to […]
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has come up with a new spin to defend the president’s NSA-spying program. Essentially, it’s the notion that Congress asked Bush to fight a war on terror, which was in effect was a blank check in more ways than one. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales this morning defended the Bush administration’s […]
A few quick housekeeping notes: * The political round-up, usually posted at noon, is on temporary hiatus. It’ll return soon. * Starting today, I’ll be co-writing a new feature on Salon’s Daou Report called “The Bottom Line,” which will help summarize different angles to the big story of the day. It’ll be online around 1pm […]
When the Congressional Research Service became the latest non-partisan entity to conclude that Bush and Congress did not have access to the same intelligence before the war began, Knight Ridder asked the Bush gang for a response. At least at first, they declined. On Friday, however, Scott McClellan explained the White House’s take on the […]
Bush, still a little sensitive that the reason for the war in Iraq turned out to be wrong, addressed the weapons of mass destruction argument briefly in last night’s speech. “After the swift fall of Baghdad, we found mass graves filled by a dictator — we found some capacity to restart programs to produce weapons […]
There was probably a point, mid-week last week, in which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice agreed to appear on Meet the Press to discuss the recent Iraqi elections. She probably regretted the decision sometime Friday, when she realized that the warrantless spying story would be Topic A. And when she did sit down with Tim […]
The Bush White House is obviously anxious, almost desperate, to reshape the debate over the war in Iraq, but the burgeoning scandal over the administration’s spying on Americans, on American soil, without a warrant, is only becoming more serious for the president as members of his own party break ranks over the issue. On Friday, […]
The media reports on the president’s speech last night seems to have a common thread. The AP complemented the president for “drop[ping] rosy Iraq scenarios”; the WaPo said Bush adopted an “almost conciliatory manner”; the NYT said Bush was “more humble” in describing progress and conditions in Iraq. There are at least two problems with […]