Desperate for a white knight to come save the party from electoral ruin, the Republican establishment turned its lonely eyes to Fred Thompson. It was going to be awesome — he’d run a new kind of campaign that could start late because of the phenomenon — online and off — it would inspire. And how’s […]
It’s easy to forget, and most news accounts seem to overlook it, but the whole point of the White House “surge” policy was to provide Iraqis with the proverbial breathing room necessary to finally make some political progress. Bush has said repeatedly that he believes Iraq’s politics cannot be changed until there’s improved security conditions, […]
Atrios noted today that it’s “amazing that the rather obvious fact that for years the entire ‘Iraq policy’ has simply been to postpone leaving until after Bush leaves office has managed not to penetrate the skulls of some of our very smart pundits.” For what it’s worth, Bush and Gordon Brown held a brief press […]
The president’s ardent (and purely ideological) opposition to expanding S-CHIP to include more middle-class children has been getting more and more attention, slowly but surely. As Brian Beutler noted, Paul Krugman tackles the issue today, and in the process, distills conservatism into two paragraphs. [W]hy should Mr. Bush fear that insuring uninsured children would lead […]
I don’t want to alarm anyone, but it appears that the Attorney General has struggled to tell the truth for quite a while. In each case, Gonzales has appeared to lawmakers to be shielding uncomfortable facts about the Bush administration’s conduct on sensitive matters. A series of misstatements and omissions has come to define his […]
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 has a provocative new response to the media focusing on political trivia over political substance during the campaign: it’s an intentional strategy. Late last week, Edwards told an Iowa audience […]
It looks like the op-ed of the day comes by way of the Brookings Institution’s Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack, both of whom supported the president’s “surge” policy, and both of whom write in the NYT today that they were — wait for it — absolutely right about everything. Viewed from Iraq, where we just […]
With Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of the Wall Street Journal nearly complete, it appears that some of the WSJ’s employees are already anxious to impress the man who’ll be signing their paychecks. On Meet the Press, a massive roundtable of six media guests were discussing the week in politics when the subject, predictably, turned to Hillary […]
The LA Times’ Doyle McManus has a curious piece yesterday, noting that foreign policy is already dominating the 2008 presidential race more than any campaign in the post-Cold War era. That’s the good news. The bad news is, McManus’ analysis doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s easy to tell the difference between the two […]
Talk of impeaching Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has become increasingly common. The New York Times editorial board even endorsed the idea over the weekend, raising the probability considerably. Unfortunately, there are some lawmakers on the Hill who are a little behind on their own powers. Take Rep. Ellen Tauscher, for example. Tauscher, a conservative Dem […]