Over the weekend, Reuters White House correspondent Steve Holland was offered the rare treat of accompanying the president on a challenging bike ride around Bush’s Texas ranch. Holland seemed impressed by the president’s biking skills. The president set a brutal pace for his accompanying riders, who included two Secret Service agents, White House spokesman Tony […]
A new Washington Post/ABC News poll includes plenty of predictable results — Bush is still unpopular, the war in Iraq is still considered a mistake, Dems enjoy a double-digit lead on the generic ballot, etc. — but there was one number that stood out as unusual. For months, if not years, public opinion about Congress […]
Have I mentioned lately how much I enjoy stories like these? (via Intoxination) [Oklahoma] Republican state Sen. Nancy Riley, complaining there is no room in her party for moderates, switched to the Democratic Party Thursday and threw a new obstacle at GOP hopes of taking control of the Senate for the first time in state […]
The theme of the day for Joe Lieberman’s supporters is “a Lieberman defeat is exactly what Republicans want.” I know, it doesn’t make any sense to me, either. But yet, that’s TNR Editor Martin Peretz argued on the most conservative high-profile print real estate in the country, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. […]
In the world of DC think tanks, the Heritage Foundation has no serious rival. The far-right institution has more power, influence, money, and even real estate than any competitor, regardless of ideology. But as TNR’s Spencer Ackerman explained in an interesting online piece today, at Heritage, it’s not enough to simply be a loyal Republican; […]
Last week: Gen. John Abizaid, the Commander of the U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iraq may be on the brink of a civil war, noting that the violence in Baghdad was worse than at any point since he assumed command in July 2003…. Gen. Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint […]
About two weeks ago, Harris released a poll that still has the political world confused. The pollster found that half the country believes that Saddam Hussein’s government had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded in 2003 — a marked increase over the last year. I still have to believe that the results are […]
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: * Embattled Rep. [tag]Bob Ney[/tag] (R-Ohio), up to his ears in the Abramoff scandal and facing a likely indictment, announced this morning that he will not run for re-election. Ney has asked state […]
We learned in May that the National Security Agency may be managing the “largest database ever assembled in the world,” used to register billions of domestic phone calls. Since then, there’s been considerable debate about whether to pull the plug on the database. As it turns out, pulling the plug may become a practical necessity. […]
As difficult as it may seem to believe, the Bush White House has long believed that its agenda would help create a powerful GOP block of young voters. According to the plan, 18-to-29-year-old voters would respond to the president’s vision of an “ownership society,” especially the privatization of Social Security. It was always a rather […]