ABC News reported yesterday that the Bush administration’s interest in regime change in Iran continues unabated. The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com. The sources, who spoke on the condition of […]
It was certainly a frustrating afternoon when we learned that congressional Dems had effectively caved to White House demands and would move forward with a war spending bill with no timelines or meaningful benchmarks. Sixteen hours ago, this seemed like an awful move. Dems and Bush were engaged in a three-month-long game of chicken, and […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * As if today’s headlines weren’t discouraging enough: “The Bush administration is quietly on track to nearly double the number of combat troops in Iraq this year, an analysis of Pentagon deployment orders showed Monday. The little-noticed second surge, designed to reinforce U.S. troops in Iraq, is being executed by […]
The AP reports: Flinching in the face of a veto threat, Democratic congressional leaders neared agreement with the Bush administration Tuesday on legislation to pay for the Iraq war without setting a timeline for troop withdrawal. Several officials said the emerging compromise bill would cost about $120 billion, including as much as $8 billion for […]
About a month ago, the NYT reported that reconstruction programs in Iraq were an abject disaster. In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as […]
It’s usually pretty easy to tell when the president really cares about an issue. Bush, when he feels like it’s worth his effort, will devote a lot of time to something important to him, he’ll hold sycophant-only public events to talk up his policy, he’ll even come up with little smears and taunts for those […]
Former Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey, who’s always been something of a Liebermanite when it comes to foreign policy, published a fairly long op-ed for the Wall Street Journal today, defending the Bush administration’s approach to the war in Iraq. Most of it is pretty boilerplate — Saddam Hussein was a “threat” after 9/11, Iraq is […]
Great, now the Bush administration is broadcasting terrorist messages in the Middle East as part of our diplomatic outreach. On the incompetence-o-meter, this one might bury the needle. Al Hurra television, the U.S. government’s $63 million-a-year effort at public diplomacy broadcasting in the Middle East, is run by executives and officials who cannot speak Arabic, […]
When it comes to global warming, the Bush administration is not beneath muzzling scientists. For example, James Hansen, the longtime director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has spoken out repeatedly, explaining to anyone who will listen that administration officials have tried to censor scientific information about climate change. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric […]
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: * Florida always seems to figure out a way to be provocative: “Gov. Charlie Crist signed a bill Monday moving Florida’s 2008 presidential primary up to Jan. 29, leapfrogging several other states in […]