Today’s edition of quick hits. * Best wishes to Tony Snow for a speedy recovery. * I get the feeling Iran’s decision to detain 15 British soldiers is going to be a fairly big deal. * Of all the speeches from the House floor today about the war in Iraq, I’m partial to Rep. Patrick […]
The timing of this isn’t terribly convenient for the Bush White House. Just as the president and his team are arguing that administration officials would never lie to Congress and wouldn’t dream of preventing lawmakers from receiving the information they need to conduct a thorough investigation … Steven Griles pleads guilty to lying to Congress […]
It’s fairly routine for big campaigns to run afoul of some campaign-finance measure. A campaign may miss a deadline, or misreport a donation, or exceed a spending limit. In general, the Federal Election Commission notices, the candidate in question makes amends, and nary an eyebrow is raised. But a $40 million excess in campaign spending […]
It’s probably unwise to get into a semantics debate over the president’s remarks, but I was struck by Bush’s reaction to the House’s Iraq bill this afternoon. Joined at the White House by veterans and service family members, Bush said: “A narrow majority in the House of Representatives abdicated its responsibility by passing a war […]
Against my better judgment, I started reading Charles Krauthammer’s column today and was pleasantly surprised by the first five words: “Alberto Gonzales has to go.” I should have stopped reading. The column went downhill from there. Krauthammer insists Gonzales’ mistake isn’t obstruction of justice and/or perjury, but merely political. “Gonzales has allowed a scandal to […]
Talk about your hard-fought victories, this one looked like it might not happen at all. The [tag]House[/tag] Democratic leadership put together the “U.S. [tag]Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Health and Iraq Accountability Act[/tag],” which, among other things, would set a [tag]timeline[/tag] to bring troops home from [tag]Iraq[/tag] by Sept. 1, 2008. It represents the biggest shift in […]
Here’s a random thought I’ve been mulling over: do congressional [tag]Republicans[/tag] agree with the White House about oversight authority? Obviously, as a practical matter, we know that the congressional GOP, while in the majority, chose not to exercise its powers of administrative [tag]oversight[/tag]. [tag]Bush[/tag]’s instincts were dangerously reinforced by the Republican-controlled Congress, which viewed itself […]
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: * Former President Bill Clinton has been very assertive the last few days, arguing that it’s “just not fair” to characterize Hillary Clinton as a war supporter. “This dichotomy that’s been set up […]
Maybe MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell should read Salon and the LA Times. She might learn something about giving [tag]Karl Rove[/tag] the benefit of the doubt. This morning, O’Donnell badgered Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) about why the White House’s purge-scandal offer — “interviews” with Rove with no oath and no transcript — isn’t good […]
Remember the debacle at Al Qaqaa? In 2004, we learned that the administration was given warnings about a massive ammunitions site, which Bush officials decided to ignore. About a dozen U.S. troops guarded the sprawling facility. As a result, Iraqi looters loaded powerful explosives into pickup trucks and drove away with about 380 tons of […]