Sometimes, these guys just start to sound like parodies of themselves. During a Tuesday meeting of the House Republican conference, Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) unveiled a handy new rhetorical device aimed at furthering House Republicans tough-on-terrorism national security agenda. Instead of referring to military tribunals as, well, the military tribunals that they are and […]
It may be stuck inexplicably on page A17, but this is a stunning article nevertheless. U.N. inspectors investigating Iran’s nuclear program angrily complained to the Bush administration and to a Republican congressman yesterday about a recent House committee report on Iran’s capabilities, calling parts of the document “outrageous and dishonest” and offering evidence to refute […]
Yesterday, we talked about VoteVets.org’s new ad in Virginia on Sen. George Allen’s (R) vote against updated body armor for troops in Iraq. The New York Times’ new political blog, The Caucus, had a pretty good item about the commercial, but included an offhand reference that needs to be corrected. A group known as VoteVets.org […]
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: * In the hopes of adding geographic and racial balance to his gubernatorial ticket, Rep. [tag]Jim Davis[/tag] (D-Fla.) announced today that former Miami state Sen. [tag]Daryl Jones[/tag] (D-Fla.) will be his running mate […]
Perhaps the single most common refrain from the White House and the president’s allies is that there have been no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001. That’s incorrect — about a month after 9/11, someone sent weaponized anthrax to two Democratic senators and several news outlets. Five Americans were killed and 17 […]
The Bush administration’s counter-terrorism policy seems hopelessly confused. Based on the current policy, we’re not reducing the number of terrorists, we’re not curtailing the number of terrorist attacks, and we’re not addressing the root causes of terrorism. If there’s a logic to this method, it’s hiding well. Thankfully, the president explained his philosophy to the […]
On Tuesday, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and National Review editor Rich Lowry, perhaps the two most important voices in conservative journalism, explained their great new idea in a WaPo op-ed on Tuesday: we don’t need fewer troops in Iraq, we need more troops in Iraq. In addition to overlooking the fact that this hasn’t […]
Of all the things for Congress to fight over, a resolution commemorating the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks seems like it should be an easy one. House Republican leaders, true to form, had other ideas. First, Dems wanted to vote on the resolution on Monday, so it would coincide with the actual anniversary. GOP […]
I’ve always wanted to understand why, exactly, Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee stays in the Republican Party. By most reasonable definitions, he’s a fairly liberal senator. He not only refused to endorse Bush, he didn’t vote for him and considered supporting a censure resolution against him. He’s openly speculated about switching parties more times than […]
In a morbid and depressing kind of way, this is almost amusing. Congress and the American public must accept that the government cannot protect every possible target against attack if it wants to avoid fulfilling Al Qaeda’s goal of bankrupting the nation, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a Senate committee Tuesday. Osama bin Laden, […]