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: * According to the WaPo, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner (D) is being “courted by national Democrats to run for the U.S. Senate seat now held by John W. Warner (R-Va.) and is […]
Dana Milbank noted today that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as recently as a month ago, told senators that “those who talk about engagement with Syria and Iran” are all wet. “That’s not diplomacy — that’s extortion,” she said. It’s been the (entirely ineffectual) key to the Bush administration’s policy towards the Middle East for […]
Late last week, Defense Secretary said he was “grateful” to reporters for exposing the problems facing outpatients at Walter Reed Medical Center. Gates said he is “very disappointed we did not identify it ourselves,” but praised media reports for exposing a problem in need of attention. To its credit, the Defense Department is responding quickly […]
Long-time readers may recall a report from way back in 2005 about Bush’s [tag]Justice Department[/tag] taking [tag]pornography[/tag] prosecutions seriously. After several far-right groups complained that the administration failed to take on porn aggressively in its first term, Alberto Gonzales announced that the DoJ would devote considerable resources to a war on smut, described at the […]
Like most rational people, MSNBC’s [tag]Keith Olbermann[/tag] has seen CNN blowhard [tag]Glenn Beck[/tag]’s work and isn’t terribly impressed. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Olbermann said Beck is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing. The very dangerously bigoted guy who is selling himself as a pragmatic philosopher. I don’t think he sees his own bigotry. There’s […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * A couple of years ago, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said the strength of the stock market is the “final arbiter” of the success of the president’s economic policies. Something to keep in mind when we consider today’s Wall Street free fall. * Considering the right-wing talking points about U.S. […]
The Huffington Post’ Melinda Henneberger reports today that the nation’s governors, in DC for the National Governors Association conference, spent some time at the White House yesterday, receiving briefings on a variety of policy issues. They were asked, however, not to ask administration officials about bringing troops home from Iraq — an issue that’s of […]
It’s certainly not my intention to criticize Joe Lieberman every day, but this one just floored me. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) said today that he is upset that critics have been questioning the administration’s intelligence on Iran, calling the reaction “unwarranted.” Lieberman said the “danger point” learned from the criticism is that the media and […]
Of all of Bush’s misstatements from the 2000 presidential election, one of the most obviously-false attacks was on military readiness. Indeed, then-Gov. Bush blamed Clinton and Gore directly for “hollowing out” the military. “If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report, ‘Not ready for duty, sir.’” […]
The season has not been kind to confidential, internal campaign memos for Republican presidential candidates. Last month, Rudy Giuliani’s 140-page playbook was leaked to some New York reporters. This month, the oppo memo Mitt Romney’s campaign team put together on its own candidate landed at the Boston Globe. Here are some views of Mitt Romney […]