Last month, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) bemoaned the notion of lawmakers working more hours on the Hill. Families, he said, are more important. Kingston told the WaPo, in response to a Dem proposal to extend the congressional work week to five days, “Keeping us up here eats away at families. Marriages suffer. The Democrats could […]
About a month ago, we talked about how the Government Accountability Office tracks the number of per-months attacks in Iraq, based on Pentagon data. Unfortunately, the latest GAO reports have been incomplete — leaving out the reported attacks from September, October, and November. The funny part was, the GAO had the numbers, but couldn’t publish […]
Over the last year or so, one of the more effective Democratic criticisms of the handling of the war is GOP support for an “open-ended” conflict. Dems would propose a timeline; Republicans would say that was “cutting and running.” Dems would propose genuine benchmarks; Republicans would say that’s “cutting and running,” too. But if war […]
As a rule, I generally ignore Jonah Goldberg’s columns — they’re hardly worth responding to — but his argument today has become increasingly common among conservatives, and therefore needs to be shot down quickly and thoroughly. Here we have a president forthrightly trying to win a war, and the opposition — which not long ago […]
There were a variety of insightful, important exchanges during Secretary of State Condi Rice’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, but one of the pre-hearing comments, overhead on an open mic, raised eyebrows. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice let slip her news media preferences Thursday, saying, “I love every single one” of Fox […]
If last night’s presidential address was Bush’s “last chance” to convince Americans that he has a sound and effective plan for the war in Iraq, the White House has a problem. Initial overnight polls show the speech wasn’t particularly persuasive. A majority of Americans oppose sending additional troops to Iraq as outlined by President Bush […]
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: * CNN is reporting that the DNC has picked Denver as the host city for its 2008 national convention. * Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) was embarrassed, again, when a video of a […]
Of all the coverage of the president’s “new” policy in Iraq, this may be the most helpful in understanding Bush’s perspective. As part of a campaign to market the new strategy, Mr. Bush’s aides insisted that the plan was largely created by the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Yet Mr. Bush sounded less […]
Over the course of the president’s 20-minute address last night, he used one word six times: “Iran.” As in: * “Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads.” * “The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits…. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit […]
The decisions made by the White House yesterday — before and during Bush’s national address — only solidified Democratic opposition to the president’s escalation strategy, but it’s worth remembering that Republicans are, with less and less hesitation, jumping ship. President Bush’s plan to deploy more US troops to Iraq drew rebukes from a range of […]