They don’t get the attention they deserve, but there’s a thriving community of military blogs (milbloggers) led in part by active-duty troops who update their sites from Iraq and Afghanistan, sometimes literally from the front lines. But as Noah Shachtman noted today, these blogs may soon be a thing of the past. The U.S. Army […]
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 a surprise turn-around, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama announced yesterday that they will attend a CNN/Union Leader debate in New Hampshire in June. Despite early statements that they would work […]
It was too good to be true. In mid January, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales apparently backed down from a year of wrangling over warrantless domestic searches. After arguing incessantly that the surveillance program was absolutely necessary, had to be kept separate from FISA, and could not be altered under any circumstances, Gonzales told the Senate […]
I can’t wait to hear the noise machine blather endlessly about how Condoleezza Rice is undermining U.S. policy by chatting with Syrian officials. (thanks to L.J. for the tip) A senior Iraqi official and a senior Arab diplomat say Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem in Egypt on Thursday […]
A few years ago, the WaPo’s Charles Krauthammer coined the phrase “Bush Derangement Syndrome,” which was intended to identify the madness that befalls critics of the president. It was quickly embraced by the far-right, which insists opposition to Bush and his policies has led to some kind of mass hysteria. Andrew Sullivan, however, recently noted […]
As expected, Bush vetoed funding for the war in Iraq yesterday, only the second veto of his presidency (the first was his rejection of funding for life-saving medical research). The president delivered a four-minute speech about his motivation for the veto yesterday afternoon, with most of the predictable arguments we’ve heard before. I found the […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * The White House announced this afternoon that the president will veto funding for the war in Iraq in about a half an hour, and will then make a televised announcement about the veto at 6:10pm (eastern). * The Bush gang has been complaining bitterly the last few days that […]
In The Princess Bride, after hearing Vizzini say “Inconceivable!” once too many times, Inigo Montoya tells him, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Similarly, Republicans keep talking about “benchmarks” for Iraq. I don’t think it means what they think it means. President Bush and congressional […]
Yesterday’s State Department report on global terrorism included sobering and dejecting data. Terrorist attacks worldwide shot up 25% of the year before, while terrorist fatalities went up 40%. The results were particularly awful in Iraq — the State Department found that terrorism in the war-torn country claimed 65% of the worldwide total of terrorist-related deaths […]
Just five days before last November’s elections, this was the lead editorial from the Wall Street Journal: So, less than a week before the midterm elections, four workers from Acorn, the liberal activist group that has registered millions of voters, have been indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms to […]