Poor Republicans. When it comes to race relations, the party hasn’t had much luck lately. First former-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said America would have been better off with a segregationist president in 1948, then Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-Wyo.) compared African Americans to drug addicts on the House floor in April, then Rep. Cass Ballenger […]
One of my favorite Simpsons episodes of the last couple of years was when Krusty gets elected to Congress on a platform of diverting air traffic away from the Simpsons’ home. The classic moment of the episode was an extended parody of Fox News Channel’s obvious right-wing tilt. (click here for a screenshot in case […]
Via Daily Kos, I’ve noticed there a couple more states with Dem presidential polls released this week. A Marist College poll released yesterday shows that Howard Dean and Wesley Clark are excelling in New York, while Joe Lieberman, who was comfortably in first place in a similar poll last month, is fading fast. (margin of […]
When Bush’s approval ratings reached the high 70s and stayed there for a while, Congress pretty much gave up on deliberations. Whatever the White House asked for, it got. Republican lawmakers, in particular, rallied behind their once-popular leader. Recently, however, as Bush’s poll numbers have fallen to around 50 percent, Republicans have suddenly realized that […]
For about a year now, Dick Gephardt has made Iowa the centerpiece of his presidential campaign. He won the state’s caucuses in 1988, he comes from a neighboring state, and his deep ties with Iowa’s union members made him the odds-on favorite to win the state again in 2004. It’s been fairly obvious that a […]
Newsweek has a really good article in this week’s issue on the U.S. military’s difficulties in translating intelligence obtained in the Middle East. Apparently, finding Arab-speaking translators willing to work with the U.S. government has proven to be extremely difficult. Considering the potential for terrorist attacks, the consequences of this unmet need can be devastating. […]
I’ve been hesitant to write about the tragedy of Terri Schiavo’s case. It’s a heart-breaking story of a young woman in Florida who has been in a vegetative state for over a decade, and who has become the focus on an intense political, moral, familial, and judicial dispute. I don’t want to belabor the details […]
Today’s must read-column comes from the estimable Gene Lyons, author of Clinton-era classics such as The Hunting of the President and Fools for Scandal. Lyons’ essay (which I learned of via Atrios) captures the sentiment that I think many of us feel every day. “Either Rush Limbaugh’s former housekeeper has been doping my morning coffee […]
Two weeks ago, the Bush White House started a “public relations offensive” to let the world know that everything is going well in Iraq and that the war on terror is a great success. All of the administration’s heavy hitters — Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice — gave high-profile speeches urging the public to be upbeat […]
The other day, in a post about Boykin’s controversial religio-political record, I said that the media missed the fact that the evangelism flap isn’t the general’s first foray into a church-state controversy. Specifically, in the Spring, Boykin was misusing the military facilities and personnel at Ft. Bragg, N.C., for — you guessed it — a […]