If the president isn’t careful, Sean Hannity might accuse him of waging “class warfare.” After all, that’s the smear d’jour for anyone who mentions income inequality, right? President Bush acknowledged Wednesday that there is growing income inequality in the United States, addressing for the first time a subject that has long concerned Democrats and liberal […]
Patrick Fitzgerald introduced an interesting, hand-written note into evidence in Scooter Libby’s criminal trial this week, written by Dick Cheney — and implicating his boss. The VP noted that Scott McClellan had told the White House press corps that Karl Rove was not responsible for the Valerie Plame Leak. For Cheney, the denial wasn’t quite […]
Oh my. Henry Kissinger, who as Richard Nixon’s secretary of state learned something about secret plans, went before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday to argue that Bush, too, has such a proposal. “I am convinced, but I cannot base it on any necessary evidence right now,” Kissinger told the senators, “that the president will […]
For all the recent speculation and anguish over a non-binding Senate resolution against the president’s latest Iraq policy, it looked likely that nothing would pass. The Biden-Hagel-Levin measure had Democratic support, but most Republicans were hesitant, and a threatened veto was likely to work. A weaker Warner-Collins-Nelson resolution was seen as being overly tepid by […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * I was slightly taken aback by Sen. Biden’s comments this morning, particularly about Obama, but I didn’t realize it would capture the political world’s attention so thoroughly. Hoping to put out the fire quickly, Biden held a conference call about two hours ago in which he explained, “I believe […]
Raw Story reports today on the general media confusion over how, exactly, to characterize Joe Lieberman’s party affiliation. His office told Raw Story today that he prefers the rendering “ID” for “Independent Democrat”, but said there’s “not particularly” been any effort by his office to convince newspapers one way or another. Lieberman’s website also refers […]
The president chatted with ABC News business reporter Betsy Stark yesterday as the White House tries to shift public attention away from the war and onto the economy. (via D. Froomkin) Stark: “You’ve . . . been frustrated. You haven’t gotten more credit for this good economy. Can that be summed up in one word? […]
Two weeks ago today, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales apparently backed down from a year of wrangling over warrantless domestic searches. After arguing incessantly that the surveillance program was absolutely necessary, had to be kept separate from FISA, and could not be altered under any circumstances, Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the administration was […]
When the president sat down with NPR’s Juan Williams this week, the host passed along a question he received from Spec. Ryan Schmidt, who is currently serving in Iraq. It’s a question a lot of us have been wondering about. WILLIAMS: You know, you mentioned timetables. NPR has a reporter embedded with the Minnesota National […]
Candidates, campaigns, and political parties have been misleading voters for about as long as there have been elections. Last year, we saw some pretty blatant and shameful GOP tactics — Maryland’s infamous “Democratic Sample Ballot” come to mind — which, fortunately, did not work as well as intended. But that doesn’t mean the dirty tricks […]