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: * If you missed it over the weekend, seven Democratic presidential candidates met at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, on Saturday for a forum on health-care policy. The event was sponsored by […]
The NYPD spent at least a year monitoring, infiltrating, and investigating groups planning to hold protests at the Republican National Convention in 2006. And now, wouldn’t you know it, the department doesn’t want to talk about it. The New York Times reported yesterday that the NYPD kept secret files on hundreds of GOP critics, even […]
I noticed that Atrios had labeled David Broder yesterday’s “Wanker of the Day,” and went to see why. At first, I nearly missed it — Broder wrote a largely unremarkable column about the latest poll from the Pew Research Center, detailing the Republican Party’s problems. “Six years of Republican control in Washington have taken a […]
When dealing with a scandal as sweeping as the prosecutor purge, it’s good to keep up on the day-to-day details, but it’s also important to keep the big picture in mind. For example, as Josh Marshall noted last night, “[T]here are some lines we just assume aren’t going to be crossed, lines that are so […]
Given what Republican lawmakers said on the Sunday morning shows, one has to assume Alberto Gonzales’ public-relations offensive isn’t going very well. Three Republican senators voiced fresh concerns on Sunday about Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales’s handling of the dismissals of eight United States attorneys amid questions about whether the firings were politically motivated. The […]
Despite the latest revelations that Alberto Gonzales lied about his involvement in the prosecutor purge, the President is standing by his Attorney General. I’m wondering if he’s the only one. I was reading several conservative blogs yesterday to gauge their support for the embattled AG. I was surprised to see so many who have decided […]
Jonah Goldberg seems a little peeved that his yet-to-be-published book, Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton, isn’t being taken more seriously. In an NRO item yesterday, Goldberg defends his forthcoming book as “groundbreaking.” Goldberg seems genuinely disappointed that his critics haven’t been “thoughtful” enough in their analyses. He told Tim Noah […]
I appreciate the fact that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales believes an aggressive public relations offensive will help him keep his job, but to avoid being laughed at, again, he should probably add some nuances to his defense. For example, yesterday, Gonzales appeared on a Seattle talk-radio show. Seattle is of particular significance, given John McKay […]
I suppose this was inevitable. On the March 23 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh told listeners that former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) and his wife Elizabeth are “political people [who] are different than you and I.” Referring to the couple’s March 22 announcement that Elizabeth Edwards has Stage IV metastatic breast […]
First up from the God Machine this week is a federal court ruling on the president’s faith-based initiative that appears to be something of a Pyrrhic victory for the religious right. A religious group called the Northwest Marriage Institute, which was created to provide Bible-based premarital and marriage counseling, has received public funds in the […]