Harold Meyerson makes a compelling argument today that the most important vote a lawmaker casts in a given Congress is his or her very first vote: for the chamber’s leadership. Using Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) as an example, Meyerson noted that Chafee made a fuss about his presidential vote in ’04, but it’s his majority-leader […]
A few months ago, Tom Engelhardt noted that the “debate” over [tag]permanent[/tag] [tag]U.S.[/tag] [tag]bases[/tag] in [tag]Iraq[/tag] was practically non-existent. After a search of the LexisNexis database, he explained, “American reporters adhere to a simple rule: The words ‘permanent,’ ‘bases,’ and ‘Iraq’ should never be placed in the same sentence, not even in the same paragraph; […]
Just to follow up briefly on yesterday’s item, Condoleezza Rice “hammered” the Clinton administration this week, responding to the former president’s Fox News interview by arguing that the Clinton White House had not fully prepared the Bush team for the terrorist threat, particularly that posed by al Qaeda. Raw Story responded with excerpts from a […]
It’s been weeks since I criticized our old friend Joe Lieberman (I), but this clearly deserves it. Even the news about the National Intelligence Estimate, which found that the Iraq war had spread terrorism, did not deter Lieberman. “Are there terrorists in Iraq? Of course there are. That’s a reason we went in,” he said. […]
The partisan breakdown is predictable, and the poll was taken before Clinton’s dust-up on Fox News, but Gallup released a poll today showing Americans blaming Bush more than Clinton for Osama bin Laden’s current freedom. The recent firestorm over former President Bill Clinton’s culpability for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was fueled on Tuesday when […]
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 new Field Poll in California, which tends to be pretty reliable, suggests Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has widened his lead over State Treasurer Phil Angelides (D). As the race stands, the […]
OK, so now we’ve seen some of the National Intelligence Estimate involving the administration’s counter-terrorism efforts, and the results are hardly encouraging. But what about the other NIE, focused exclusively on Iraq? As Josh Marshall explained yesterday, there’s one NIE on terrorist threats in general, and another exclusively on Iraq. Any chance we’ll get a […]
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute launched a worthwhile project recently: it surveyed 14,000 students at 50 schools as part of the largest study ever done on college students’ understanding of American democracy and political institutions. They didn’t just pick any college, either; the ISI study picked 25 schools at random, and then oversampled among the most […]
The Bush gang? Blocking a scientific report they don’t like? You don’t say. The Bush administration has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday. The possibility that warming conditions may cause storms to become stronger has generated debate among […]
Americans have a choice — they can believe the president, who said just yesterday that the war in Iraq is not contributing to the spread of terrorism, or they can believe the combined judgment of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, which collectively believe the polar opposite. In announcing yesterday that he would release the key […]