Bush administration lawyers have suffered a variety of embarrassing legal setbacks in their handling of Guantanamo detainees, in large part because the president’s team has tortured them and denied them due process rights. As Michael Froomkin noted, the administration is now poised to lose in court, so one of Bush’s lawyers has decided to take […]
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) has been generally right about the war in Iraq from the beginning. Unlike many of his fellow Dems on the committee, for example, it was Reyes who opposed the original war resolution in 2002, saying the president hadn’t convinced him that Iraq was a threat or connected to […]
This is sadly typical of the Bush administration. (via my friend Mark Gisleson) Top officials at the Internal Revenue Service are pushing agents to prematurely close audits of big companies with agreements to have them pay only a fraction of the additional taxes that could be collected, according to dozens of I.R.S. employees who say […]
As much as I’d like to believe that the White House staff is in touch with reality, they keep giving me reasons to believe otherwise. Take Press Secretary Tony Snow, for example. Snow appeared on Hugh Hewitt’s radio talk show yesterday, and insisted that the Bush administration has been fighting a “new media war” for […]
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: * In the surest sign yet that Barack Obama is very serious about running for president, the Illinois senator is reportedly expected to hire David Plouffe, a former executive director of the DCCC, […]
I admit at the outset that I did not hear the president’s remarks at Fort Benning, Georgia, yesterday. Bush was reportedly looking for a “friendly audience and a patriotic backdrop” to help sell his “new” escalation policy, and the president who can hardly resist using troops as props probably thought this trip to a military […]
I suppose I should give Peggy Noonan credit for writing half of a good column. In today’s Wall Street Journal, the former Reagan speechwriter expresses deep disappointment in the president, his “new” policy, and this week’s speech on troop escalation in Iraq. She quoted a like-minded reporter who said, “So this is it? The grand […]
Earlier this week, it looked like congressional Dems would finally get some long-sought after answers about the Bush administration’s handling of the Hurricane Katrina debacle. In particular, there’s a still-secret videoconference held shortly after Katrina hit New Orleans in which Michael Brown allegedly warned presidential aides that 90% of the city was being “displaced,” a […]
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters on the Hill yesterday that he planned to launch a filibuster against any Democratic attempt to pass a non-binding resolution expressing disapproval of Bush’s escalation plan. Note to McConnell: bring it on. First, from a political perspective, Dems would like nothing more than to see Republicans going […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * The good news is the House easily passed a measure to undo the White House’s restrictive policy on funding stem-cell research, 253-174. The bad news is Bush has vowed to veto the measure, and today’s margin puts supporters short of a two-thirds majority needed for an override. * If […]