We’ve known for a while that the president has a nasty habit of issuing “signing statements,” through which Bush tells Congress which parts of certain laws he’s decided to ignore. Senate Pro Tem Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) recently asked the non-partisan General Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, to look […]
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been “investigating whether White House officials violated the Presidential Records Act by using e-mail accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee and the Bush Cheney ’04 campaign for official White House communications.” Today, House investigators released an interim staff report with a summary of the evidence the […]
Time’s cover story this week is a wildly complimentary piece about Michael Bloomberg and Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom the magazine dubs, “The New Action Heroes.” I actually found the article interesting for what it didn’t say. It’s not just a shameless puff piece (though it’s partly that); the point of Michael Grunwald’s article seems to be […]
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: * Most of Mitt Romney’s GOP rivals have played nice when it comes to making an issue out of his religious faith, but an Iowa staffer for Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) aimed low […]
Way back in March, when the U.S. Attorney purge scandal was front-page news, Kagro X wrote a great piece that touched on a likely trend: a new opportunity for defense attorneys. “Defense attorneys across the country are doubtless exploring the possibility of demanding new trials for their clients,” KX wrote, “and those awaiting trial will […]
John Emerson raised a point I hadn’t given much thought to, but will be of the utmost importance in early 2009. I think that when the “honest conservatives” reject Bush they’re just setting up their assault on the Democratic president they expect to see elected next year. Their way of digging themselves out from under […]
When it comes to credibility on the Abu Ghraib scandal, we can’t do much better than Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, the two-star Army general who led the first investigation into detainee abuse. As for what Taguba found during his investigation, the general believes senior Pentagon officials were, their denials notwithstanding, involved in directing the abusive […]
In his latest Newsweek column, Jonathan Alter suggests Dems are struggling in the political debate over war policy, in part because they’re not nearly as good as Republicans at coming up with bumper-sticker slogans. Iraq is President Bush’s war, but the Democrats are quickly getting tagged with some blame for it. One of the reasons […]