The Bush administration and congressional Democrats are at odds over a pay hike for U.S. troops. Take a wild guess who “supports our troops” more. Troops don’t need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization […]
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: * New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will formally kick off his presidential campaign on Monday, after months of campaigning. He will make his announcement in Los Angeles, instead of his home state. * […]
Robert Novak breaks a little news in his column today, noting that Susan Ralston, Karl Rove’s former executive assistant (and disgraced GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s former secretary), is “requesting immunity to testify before Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman’s investigating committee.” If accurate, this could be a fairly big deal. Last fall, we learned that Abramoff had […]
James Comey’s testimony this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee has caused all kinds of headaches for Attorney General [tag]Alberto Gonzales[/tag], but Peter Swire touched on one of the more notable problems yesterday — [tag]Comey[/tag] seems to have pointed to an instance in which Gonzales lied under oath. In a 2006 hearing, Gonzales, during a […]
If media coverage is any indication, Rudy Giuliani scored big in this week’s GOP debate when he took Ron Paul to task for suggesting U.S. policies in the Middle East helped cause 9/11. But Greg Sargent caught an even more striking Giuliani comment shortly after the debate, when the former NYC mayor appeared on Fox […]
Somehow, this scandal manages to keep getting worse, while Alberto Gonzales’ lies manage to become even more troubling. The Justice Department considered dismissing many more U.S. attorneys than officials have previously acknowledged, with at least 26 prosecutors suggested for termination between February 2005 and December 2006, according to sources familiar with documents withheld from the […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * It looks like Paul Wolfowitz’s resignation from the World Bank is imminent: “Embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is negotiating an agreement to resign, according to an official familiar with the talks. His departure would include an acknowledgment from the bank that he doesn’t bear sole responsibility for the […]
Unprompted, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow responded this afternoon to Sen. Feingold’s measure to cut off money for combat operations in Iraq after March 31, 2008. I’ve seen just about every press briefing Snow has done, and this has to rank right up there among the craziest arguments he’s made. Q: On the war […]
At the risk of writing too much about the incident James Comey described yesterday, regarding events in John Ashcroft’s hospital room in 2004, there’s one angle to this that’s been bugging me all day. Mr. Comey said that when a top aide to Mr. Ashcroft alerted him about the pending visit [from Card and Gonzales], […]
The White House has finally found its “war czar” — Bush reportedly offered Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute the job, which Lute accepted. As a matter of policy, it’s not at all clear what the “czar” is going to do — or even be able to do — especially given that Lute appears to disagree with […]