Over the weekend, as the media focused on the third anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq, the White House played “blame the messenger.” Dick Cheney said, “There is a constant sort of perception, if you will, that’s created because what’s newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad.” (He didn’t say, “Look at […]
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: * A Quinnipiac poll released this morning shows Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) leading State Sen. Thomas Kean (R-N.J.) by four points in this year’s Senate campaign, 40% to 36%. The pollsters noted that […]
A year ago, asked why three law-abiding ticket holders were forcibly removed from a presidential event because of their bumper sticker, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said a “volunteer” was responsible. A few weeks later, after McClellan had a chance to glean more information about the incident, he added, “Now, in terms of this […]
Rep. Katherine Harris’ (R-Fla.) Senate campaign is clearly facing serious trouble — down in the polls, lagging fundraising, zero institutional support, a scandal or two hanging overhead — but like too many Republican candidates, she has one tactic to fall back on: the God card. More than 800 conservative Christians were attending a two-day annual […]
The Washington Post ran a front-page item today suggesting that congressional Republicans are “struggling to define” their 2006 campaign strategy. As it happens, that’s not quite true. As the Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes explained, they have a plan, it’s just not a very good one. This spring and summer, Republican leaders in the Senate and […]
In case you missed it over the weekend, the AP wrote the kind of article that’s entirely too rare: the kind that calls Bush on his bogus rhetorical games. In this instance, the AP’s Jennifer Loven, to her enormous credit, explained that when the president “starts a sentence with ‘some say’ or offers up what […]
I realize that Dick Cheney was in the untenable position of having to defend the administration’s policy in Iraq, and I’ve come to expect a disturbing amount of mendacity in the Vice President’s remarks. But yesterday, on CBS’s Face the Nation, Cheney was in rare form. (TP has video.) Schieffer: Mr. Vice President, all along […]
Just a quick alert to readers who read and participate in the comments section. I had hoped to avoid any changes to the wide-open, edit-free nature of the forum, but recent developments regarding a handful of, shall we say, “dissenters,” has made it necessary for me to make a few changes. My goal has always […]