Today’s edition of quick hits. * Well, that’s not good: “Prices paid by U.S. consumers jumped in June by the most since 1982 on spiraling costs for fuel and food, giving the Federal Reserve even more reason to be concerned about inflation. The cost of living soared 1.1 percent, more than forecast, after a 0.6 […]
On Monday, the New York Daily News reported that the Obama campaign had “scrubbed” its website to “remove criticism of the U.S. troop “surge” in Iraq.” The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a “problem” that had barely reduced violence. “The surge is not working,” Obama’s […]
Two weeks ago, the misguided ideologues at the Wall Street Journal editorial page offered a novel argument: it’s Barack Obama, not John McCain, who’s actually “running for … Bush’s third term.” It was unusually dumb, even for the WSJ editorial page, and was premised on a series of bizarre lies and distortions. Even unhinged conservatives […]
As readers may have noticed, I added a permanent link to the list of John McCain’s flip-flops, just under the search feature. I’ve received quite a bit of positive feedback on the list, and several people encouraged me to make it easier to find. This should do the trick. Instead of periodically running updated lists, […]
Yesterday, John McCain delivered a high-profile speech on his Afghanistan policy, and unfortunately for his campaign, it didn’t go well. He went from opposing more troops in Afghanistan, to supporting more troops, to saying the troops shouldn’t come from the U.S., to saying some of the troops should come from the U.S. Ultimately, McCain ended […]
Back when Rudy Giuliani was a presidential candidate, the one phrase he repeated more than any other was about his desire to “stay on offense” when it came to national security. He was never altogether clear what that meant, but it apparently had something to do with invading and occupying much of the Middle East. […]
This is pretty radical, even by Bush administration standards. Family planning groups and at least one member of Congress objected on Tuesday to a Bush administration memo that defines several widely used contraception methods as abortion and protects the right of medical providers to refuse to offer them. The proposal would cut off federal funds […]
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: * The Obama campaign is jumping all over John McCain’s confusion over Afghanistan policy. * Sparking a new round of scuttlebutt about possible running mates, Barack Obama will be joined today by Sen. […]
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 […]