Just a couple of days ago, it seemed as if there was an odd dearth of new [tag]poll[/tag]ing numbers available. In light of recent events (the NIE disclosure, [tag]Foley[/tag], [tag]Woodward[/tag], Rice’s July 2001 meeting, George Allen, etc.), much of the political world has been waiting anxiously to see just how bad things have become for […]
If you haven’t already seen it (and if you missed the earlier discussion of it), MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann offered another one of his more notable on-air commentaries last night. If you have a few minutes, it’s definitely worth watching. As Dan Froomkin put it: The traditional media has been slow to come to grips with […]
The LA Times had an editorial today that touched on a subject I’ve been meaning to get to all week: Dennis Hastert is an awful Speaker of the House. The Mark Foley sex scandal has clearly put Hastert’s leadership role in jeopardy, but the longest-serving Republican Speaker in American history demonstrated his inabilities long before […]
If you enjoy dark, morbid humor, today’s New York Times piece on Condoleezza Rice’s “surprise” trip to Iraq yesterday was almost funny, in a dispiriting kind of way. Wearing a helmet and a flak jacket and flanked by machine-gun-toting bodyguards to defend against insurgents, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came here Thursday, insisting that there […]
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: * USA Today/Gallup released polling data on six of the most closely watched Senate races in the country today — and nearly all offer encouraging news for Dems. In Maryland, Rep. Ben Cardin […]
On Wednesday, at a brief signing ceremony, the president put his signature on a homeland security bill that included an overhaul of FEMA and added $1.2 billion for fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border. At the event, Bush said, “This is a good bill.” It was not, apparently, good enough for him to agree to the […]
By all indications, Bush is having trouble catapulting the propaganda. Through disappointing polls and bad news in Iraq, intraparty squabbling over immigration and bipartisan broadsides on port security, President Bush has been able to use the megaphone of his office to shout above the din and shape the national debate. But the Mark Foley scandal […]
A small-but-vocal element of the GOP — let’s call them the “unhinged right” — have decided that the way out of the Mark Foley fiasco is to go give up on reality. Some are publicly identifying the names of pages who had been anonymous (much of the “pro-family” crowd seems to have no qualms about […]
All week, intra-party grumbling suggested House Republicans would have little choice but to make a change in its leadership. Yesterday, the party changed its mind. Republicans have decided that, after flirting with a leadership shake-up, they’ll have to stick with Dennis Hastert in the Speaker’s office, at least until the next bombshell. As the WaPo […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * The House Ethics Committee officially opened an expansive investigation into Foley sex scandal this afternoon, approving nearly four dozen subpoenas for witnesses and documents. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), said a newly formed subcommittee’s investigation “will go wherever our evidence leads us.” * A few moments later, […]