When history looks back at the disgrace of the Bush presidency, the one celebrated quote that will help capture much of what went wrong will be John DiIulio’s. It was DiIulio, the first director of the president’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who told Ron Suskind, “What you’ve got is everything — […]
If you read conservative blogs, you’ve probably heard quite a bit about “Scott Thomas,” a pseudonym a U.S. soldier in Iraq has used while writing a series of pieces about the war for The New Republic. The controversy that erupted over the last couple of weeks has been startling. For those of you who don’t […]
I hear the occasional grumbling that congressional Dems aren’t aggressive enough. They don’t fight the White House as hard as the White House fights them. They’re too quick to back down in the face of the Bush gang’s obstinacy. I don’t think anyone’s saying that this week. Around the same time four Senate Dems were […]
Dems, and more than a few Republicans, have made it clear for quite some time that Alberto Gonzales should not be the Attorney General, but after the AG’s ridiculous appearance this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which Gonzales appears to have lied rather recklessly, Senate Dems are taking their frustrations to the next […]
This week, the NYT reported on a classified plan, which “represents the coordinated strategy of the top American commander and the American ambassador,” that foresees a significant U.S. role in Iraq for the next two years, with a goal of “sustainable security” throughout the country by the summer of 2009. The approach is called the […]
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: * John Edwards unveiled a fairly detailed tax plan this morning in Des Moines. Among the highlights: repealing tax breaks for families earning more than $200,000, raising the top tax rate on long-term […]
The AP’s Ron Fournier suggests in his latest piece that the Democratic presidential field is “snub[bing] party moderates.” Bill Clinton will be there. So will 300 officeholders from more than 45 states. But one thing will be missing when Democrats gather in Tennessee this weekend to discuss how to appeal to moderate, independent-minded voters in […]
As I’ve been told, there’s an old law-school joke that everyone learns fairly quickly: when you have the facts, argue the facts … when you have the law, argue the law … and when you have neither, bang on the table. Yesterday, after the House Judiciary Committee approved contempt citations against former White House Counsel […]
I’ve heard some talk from the punditocracy that the Democratic presidential candidates have been surprisingly nice to one another so far. Kucinich and Gravel have lashed out at the top tier with angry outbursts, which tend to be ignored, but the more competitive candidates have been getting along fairly well. I think that initial let’s-all-be-pleasant […]
At yesterday’s White House press briefing, Tony Snow actually bragged about how strong Alberto Gonzales appears after having been exposed as a corrupt, incompetent and dishonest fraud. Bush’s press secretary boasted that the Senate Judiciary Committee never “laid a glove on him.” Maybe Snow and I have different definitions of “gloves.” Does perjury count? Documents […]