One of the enduring rhetorical devices used by supporters of the president’s Iraq policy is that every development, no matter how discouraging, is great news. Violence is up? That means the dead-enders know their time is running out. Violence is down? That means our policy is working. No news is bad news. Every catastrophe is […]
This week, Fox News’ E.D. Hill was forced to apologize for her on-air assessment that a fist-bump between Barack and Michelle Obama might have been a “terrorist fist jab.” A few weeks ago, Fox News’ Liz Trotta suggested on the air that someone should “knock off” the Democratic presidential candidate. I’m thinking it might be […]
All of the usual caveats apply — we’re still five months away from the general election, and the landscape will change; national polls offer minimal predictive value this far out; and a presidential race is a state-by-state contest. With all of that in mind, though, it’s nevertheless helpful to consider national polls for their general […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * Oh my: “U.S.-led forces killed Pakistani troops in an airstrike along the volatile Afghan border that Pakistan’s army condemned on Wednesday as ‘completely unprovoked and cowardly.’ U.S. officials confirmed that three aircraft launched about a dozen bombs following a clash between Taliban militants and Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces […]
It may seem hard to believe, but John McCain is actually intent on making Still-President Bush look fiscally responsible. Given that Bush has added trillions to the debt, run the largest deficits in U.S. history, and is the first president to ever put the costs of a war on the national charge card, that’s no […]
When Barack Obama chose James Johnson to be part of his VP search committee, no one was especially surprised. Johnson had, after all, helped run the same committee for Democratic presidential candidates before. Obama did not, however, vet the vetter. Republicans pounced on reports that Johnson, the former chairman of Fannie Mae, may have received […]
For quite a while, when the president was asked whether he’d made any mistakes in office, Bush would struggle to come up with something. More recently, he came up with a stock answer: Bush thought it was a mistake to use warmongering rhetoric such as “bring ’em on.” This week, in the midst of a […]
I suppose there’s nothing more embarrassing for a politician than to make a mistake by accidentally saying what he or she really believes. Take John McCain, for example. Matt Lauer asked McCain this morning whether the senator now has “a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq.” McCain said, “No, but […]
I can appreciate the fact that the McCain campaign and Republicans in general are a little touchy about the senator’s age — running to be the oldest president in U.S. history will do that — but that’s no reason to characterize every critical adjective in the language as some kind of slight about McCain’s septuagenarian […]
In April, right-wing hatchetman Floyd Brown, best known for creating the infamous “Willie Horton ad” in the 1988 campaign, launched a bizarre smear ad against Barack Obama. The point of the ad wasn’t especially obvious — Brown’s spot argued that Obama resisted an effort to allow the Illinois to execute gang members, which somehow contributed […]