Putting aside whether it’s an effective political strategy, one of the side debates of the Democratic presidential race has been about transparency and disclosure. Barack Obama has released his tax returns and a list of every earmark he’s ever requested; Hillary Clinton has declined, thus far, to do either. The issue hasn’t exactly reached Ferraro […]
I’ve never been especially moved by Barack Obama’s Rezko controversy. As far as I can tell, there was some quid, but nothing in the way of quo. After quite a bit of scrutiny, over a long period of time, there still didn’t appear to be much in the way of evidence pointing to any specific […]
As was widely reported this week, the Pentagon has prepared a new report on non-existent ties between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s regime. The document is the culmination of an exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion. Not surprisingly, officials discovered what we already knew — […]
I’ve often wondered what is a professional talking head does all day. For example, what’s Chris Matthews’ schedule like? He’s on the air, arguing and pontificating, quite a bit, but what about when he’s not in front of the camera? As a media professional covering a presidential race, Congress, a war, and various political controversies, […]
First up from the God machine this week is an encouraging religious development on climate change, from an unexpected source. Signaling a significant departure from the Southern Baptist Convention’s official stance on global warming, 44 Southern Baptist leaders have decided to back a declaration calling for more action on climate change, saying its previous position […]
John McCain is embarking on an overseas tour, ostensibly as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Of course, as the Republican presidential nominee, the politics of the trip is almost unavoidable. McCain is a familiar figure overseas, but the heads of state in Iraq, Jordan, Israel, France and Britain will take fresh measure […]
It was largely unexpected, but questions about Barack Obama’s church pastor had, oddly enough, suddenly become the one political controversy that stood to do the most damage to his campaign. The Rezko story seems pretty thin, NAFTA-gate turned out to be much less than met the eye, the “madrassa” story was complete nonsense, and the […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * The latest on Florida’s delegates: “Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) is floating a new compromise idea for seating delegates from Florida: That the result of the January rogue primary be accepted as is, but that the overall delegate allotment be cut in half, as the Republican National Committee originally did […]
Behind-the-scenes talks continue at a fairly aggressive pace about what Dems are going to do with Michigan and Florida. There’s a growing sense that Michigan may end up hosting a do-over primary in June, while influential Floridians continue to float various compromise proposals. There’s apparently a sense among Clinton supporters that the Clinton campaign should […]
A month ago today, Gen. David Petraeus sounded relatively optimistic about political progress in Iraq: “The passage of the three laws today showed that the Iraqi leaders are now taking advantage of the opportunity that coalition and Iraqi troopers fought so hard to provide.” That was then; this is now. Iraqi leaders have failed to […]