Earlier this week, it looked like congressional Dems would finally get some long-sought after answers about the Bush administration’s handling of the Hurricane Katrina debacle. In particular, there’s a still-secret videoconference held shortly after Katrina hit New Orleans in which Michael Brown allegedly warned presidential aides that 90% of the city was being “displaced,” a […]
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters on the Hill yesterday that he planned to launch a filibuster against any Democratic attempt to pass a non-binding resolution expressing disapproval of Bush’s escalation plan. Note to McConnell: bring it on. First, from a political perspective, Dems would like nothing more than to see Republicans going […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * The good news is the House easily passed a measure to undo the White House’s restrictive policy on funding stem-cell research, 253-174. The bad news is Bush has vowed to veto the measure, and today’s margin puts supporters short of a two-thirds majority needed for an override. * If […]
Last month, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) bemoaned the notion of lawmakers working more hours on the Hill. Families, he said, are more important. Kingston told the WaPo, in response to a Dem proposal to extend the congressional work week to five days, “Keeping us up here eats away at families. Marriages suffer. The Democrats could […]
About a month ago, we talked about how the Government Accountability Office tracks the number of per-months attacks in Iraq, based on Pentagon data. Unfortunately, the latest GAO reports have been incomplete — leaving out the reported attacks from September, October, and November. The funny part was, the GAO had the numbers, but couldn’t publish […]
Over the last year or so, one of the more effective Democratic criticisms of the handling of the war is GOP support for an “open-ended” conflict. Dems would propose a timeline; Republicans would say that was “cutting and running.” Dems would propose genuine benchmarks; Republicans would say that’s “cutting and running,” too. But if war […]
As a rule, I generally ignore Jonah Goldberg’s columns — they’re hardly worth responding to — but his argument today has become increasingly common among conservatives, and therefore needs to be shot down quickly and thoroughly. Here we have a president forthrightly trying to win a war, and the opposition — which not long ago […]
There were a variety of insightful, important exchanges during Secretary of State Condi Rice’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, but one of the pre-hearing comments, overhead on an open mic, raised eyebrows. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice let slip her news media preferences Thursday, saying, “I love every single one” of Fox […]
If last night’s presidential address was Bush’s “last chance” to convince Americans that he has a sound and effective plan for the war in Iraq, the White House has a problem. Initial overnight polls show the speech wasn’t particularly persuasive. A majority of Americans oppose sending additional troops to Iraq as outlined by President Bush […]
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: * CNN is reporting that the DNC has picked Denver as the host city for its 2008 national convention. * Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) was embarrassed, again, when a video of a […]