Two months ago yesterday, George W. Bush addressed the Israeli Knesset, and suggested that those who support negotiations with Iran are guilty of “appeasement,” equivalent to those who were reluctant to confront Hitler in 1939. The remarks were quickly embraced and amplified by John McCain, who insisted that Barack Obama’s willingness to talk to our […]
There was a modest slowdown in national polls around the 4th of July holiday, but it seems outlets are making up for lost time with plenty of new data for observers to pore over. The latest WaPo/ABC poll, for example, shows Barack Obama up by a relatively comfortable margin, bolstered by a huge edge on […]
Barack Obama hasn’t been doing too many prime-time interviews lately, so it was at least somewhat newsworthy to see him sit down with CNN’s Larry King and Gwen Ifill of PBS’s “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” last night. This exchange from the latter interview seems to have drawn quite a bit of attention. MS. IFILL: […]
In about two hours, John McCain will speak to the NAACP’s annual convention. Given his record, it’s going to be a pretty tough sell. If politics is the art of persuasion, John McCain has his work cut out for him in Cincinnati on Wednesday. In the late morning, the Republican candidate for president will walk […]
While talking about the war in Afghanistan yesterday, John McCain predictably went after Barack Obama, saying Obama “has no strategy.” It was an odd attack, given the fact that McCain had just flip-flopped on his Afghanistan policy, and embraced Obama’s strategy as his own. Here’s McCain yesterday, talking about his plan to send more U.S. […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * Violence remains a problem in Iraq: “Two suicide bombers posing as army recruits struck an Iraqi base just east of Baquba on Tuesday morning, killing at least 35 Iraqi recruits and wounding 63, according to the Iraqi police and medical officials in Diyala Province.” * More: “Scattered sandals and […]
In Matt Yglesias’ book, “Heads in the Sand,” which I can’t recommend enough, there’s an especially depressing chapter that explores the extraordinary opportunity the United States had in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. From Chapter Three: Nations around the world, including ones with long-standing tense relations with the United States, felt their interests […]
John McCain hasn’t spent much time talking about Afghanistan during the presidential campaign, but now that “other” war is deteriorating, the Republican candidate has discovered his new-found interest in the conflict. Republican John McCain said Tuesday he knows “how to win wars” and that the strategy of increasing troop levels in Iraq should also be […]
John McCain sat down with the New York Times the other day for a wide-ranging interview that covered quite a bit of ground. The NYT brought up a culture-war subject that we haven’t heard too much about lately. Q: President Bush believes that gay couples should not be permitted to adopt children. Do you agree […]
After Phil Gramm’s recent comments about a “mental recession,” and the notion that we make up a “nation of whiners,” I expected leading Republicans to stop talking so much about psychology and the economy. No such luck. Here’s the president this morning, during a White House press conference, in response to a question about whether […]