Picking the single worst, most ineffective, most scandal-ridden Bush cabinet agency isn’t easy. Sure, Alberto Gonzales’ Justice Department has to get the top spot, but there’s Rumsfeld’s Pentagon, Paige’s Department of Education, and Chertoff’s DHS. But let’s not overlook Alphonso Jackson’s HUD, for my money, every bit as corrupt and ridiculous as any cabinet agency […]
Following up on an item from yesterday, 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 […]
Former VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro has become quite a controversial figure in Democratic circles this week. In surprisingly bitter language, she argued that Barack Obama is “very lucky” to be a black man running for president. Pressed for an explanation, Ferraro, a prominent Clinton backer and member of her national finance team, said, “I really […]
One of the more common arguments I’ve heard from the Clinton campaign in recent weeks is that Obama is a weaker general-election candidate because he’s losing “big states” to Clinton. The argument has drawn criticism for being elitist, and while there’s probably something to that, the point is worth considering in more detail. Indeed, at […]
Given the political climate, any talk about delegates going to the convention and wreaking havoc immediately reminds us of the messy process for picking the Democratic presidential nominee. But in this instance, I’m talking about Republican delegates. The editors of the National Review, not exactly fans of John McCain, seem resigned to reality. McCain will […]
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: * A relative consensus was beginning to emerge in Florida, with state Dems embracing the idea of a do-over primary — which would count — held by mail. Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida’s top […]
In the grand scheme of things, this really didn’t take long. Eliot Spitzer was caught on Monday afternoon, he pondered his fate on Tuesday, and he gave up his office on Wednesday, less than 48 hours after the story broke in the New York Times. Here’s the transcript of Spitzer’s brief announcement in New York […]
Apparently with an eye towards Gen. David Patraeus’ upcoming congressional testimony, the president is involved in yet another p.r. push to defend staying the course in Iraq. President Bush delivered a rousing defense of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on Tuesday, mixing faith and foreign policy as he told a group of Christian broadcasters […]
We talked the other day about presidential candidates and foreign policy expertise. There are basically two categories: less experienced candidates who emphasize judgment, vision, and temperament (such as Obama this year, and Bill Clinton in ’92), and more experienced candidates who emphasize expertise, knowledge, and background (such as Joe Biden). Hillary Clinton has gone to […]
I would have been more than content to avoid further comment on John McCain’s outreach and embrace of anti-Catholic, anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-woman, and anti-Semitic televangelist John Hagee. The media collectively decided to give McCain a pass, the senator made a half-hearted effort to distance himself from some of Hagee’s comments, and McCain critics had no […]