Today’s edition of quick hits. * The good news is the House passed a measure today to let Medicare negotiate lower prescription drug prices for seniors. The bad news is, it passed 255 to 170, which is short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto (which is likely). * Olbermann. Special Comment. […]
For those of you who don’t peruse the right side of the blogosphere, you may not realize that a surprising number of conservatives are apoplectic about an exchange between Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over personal investment in the war in Iraq. This piece in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post […]
I noted earlier this week that the president went from being adamantly opposed to a troop escalation in Iraq to being adamantly supportive of a troop escalation in Iraq. Given the circumstances, it was imperative that Bush explain how and why he came to change his mind. In remarks to troops at Fort Benning yesterday, […]
Bush administration lawyers have suffered a variety of embarrassing legal setbacks in their handling of Guantanamo detainees, in large part because the president’s team has tortured them and denied them due process rights. As Michael Froomkin noted, the administration is now poised to lose in court, so one of Bush’s lawyers has decided to take […]
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) has been generally right about the war in Iraq from the beginning. Unlike many of his fellow Dems on the committee, for example, it was Reyes who opposed the original war resolution in 2002, saying the president hadn’t convinced him that Iraq was a threat or connected to […]
This is sadly typical of the Bush administration. (via my friend Mark Gisleson) Top officials at the Internal Revenue Service are pushing agents to prematurely close audits of big companies with agreements to have them pay only a fraction of the additional taxes that could be collected, according to dozens of I.R.S. employees who say […]
As much as I’d like to believe that the White House staff is in touch with reality, they keep giving me reasons to believe otherwise. Take Press Secretary Tony Snow, for example. Snow appeared on Hugh Hewitt’s radio talk show yesterday, and insisted that the Bush administration has been fighting a “new media war” for […]
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 the surest sign yet that Barack Obama is very serious about running for president, the Illinois senator is reportedly expected to hire David Plouffe, a former executive director of the DCCC, […]
I admit at the outset that I did not hear the president’s remarks at Fort Benning, Georgia, yesterday. Bush was reportedly looking for a “friendly audience and a patriotic backdrop” to help sell his “new” escalation policy, and the president who can hardly resist using troops as props probably thought this trip to a military […]
I suppose I should give Peggy Noonan credit for writing half of a good column. In today’s Wall Street Journal, the former Reagan speechwriter expresses deep disappointment in the president, his “new” policy, and this week’s speech on troop escalation in Iraq. She quoted a like-minded reporter who said, “So this is it? The grand […]