The New York Times had an interesting item yesterday on how the Iraq Study Group report is contributing to the great GOP crack-up over the war, noting that “deep fissures among Republicans over how to manage a war that many fear will haunt their party — and the nation — for years to come” are […]
Time’s Karen Tumulty wrote one of the better, more even-handed pieces on Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign that I’ve seen in a while. It not only skipped over false-but-obligatory praise for the senator’s “maverick” tendencies, the article even went to so far as to point out a major substantive hurdle — his inconsistencies. After […]
[tag]Barack Obama[/tag] was in [tag]New Hampshire[/tag] yesterday for his first swing through the first primary state, and like everyone else, I was anxious to see how it went. Granite State voters aren’t easily impressed, they’ve seen plenty of buzz-worthy politicians come and go, and after a couple of generations of vetting would-be presidents, they’ve come […]
I have to assume that White House Press Secretary Tony Snow no longer wants to be taken seriously. He just doesn’t care. He’s got the cool job, he’s getting to do some campaigning for far-right Republicans, and he’s a bit of a celebrity … so if his answers don’t coincide with reality at all, it’s […]
It would be a gross exaggeration to suggest that every person to ever run for president in U.S. history has been a wealthy white Protestant male. We’ve had some Catholic candidates (Al Smith, Kennedy, Kerry), some Mormon candidates (George Romney, Hatch), some Jewish candidates (Lieberman, Specter), some African-American candidates (Jackson, Sharpton), and some women candidates […]
Back in August, we learned from former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith that the president, shortly before he ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003, did not understand the religious differences at the heart of Iraqi society. As Galbraith explained, Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, who quickly realized that the president was unfamiliar with […]
There’s just something perfect about this. After 12 months of naked partisanship on Capitol Hill, on cable TV and in the blogosphere, the word of the year for 2006 is … “truthiness.” The word — if one can call it that — best summed up 2006, according to an online survey by dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster. […]
US News reported yesterday that the H.W. Bush gang, sent in to give Bush 43 a hand, are feeling a little dejected. Apparently, they expected the president to take the Iraq Study Group a little more seriously. They consider him rather dismissive of the group’s conclusions…. “We have a classic case of circling the wagons,” […]
A little more than a week ago, the administration leaked word that some Bush administration officials support something called the “80 percent solution” in Iraq. Basically, the plan is to take sides in the civil war, and back the Shiite majority over the Sunni minority. By any reasonable estimation, it’s a very bad idea. For […]
The president has done some post-election tinkering, but the public isn’t impressed. His support, which was low before, keeps dropping further. The national job approval rating of President Bush has plummeted to 30%, an all–time low in the latest Zogby International telephone poll, sinking below the 31% approval rating he dropped to in early June. […]