Friday is Poll Day

Wrapping up yet another week is a post with the latest presidential polling data I can find. All of the results were released within the last seven days, but most were conducted before Iraq started falling apart at the seems and well before Condi Rice’s 9/11 testimony. Florida (27 electoral votes) Mason-Dixon Poll — Bush […]

Another week of Carpetbagger’s Correspondents’ Corner

I’ve had a steady stream of great emails lately, but in this week’s edition of Correspondents’ Corner, there are two I’d like to share. First up is an email from a Carpetbagger regular I’ll call “Progressive Junkie.” PJ’s email did a fine job identifying philosophical problems with recent political discourse, but also explains why there […]

The overarching lesson from yesterday — Rice is clueless

Everyone with a pulse has written and/or spoken at great length about Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission. The Center for American Progress, as usual, has done all of the heavy lifting and has prepared the most comprehensive fact-checking work I can imagine. I strongly recommend checking out CAP’s work on this. I don’t […]

NRCC busted for illegal ‘soft money’ donations

For those of you who enjoyed my recent list of Republican controversies that have been the subject of formal investigations, I found number 19 this afternoon. (Just one more for the big two-oh!) The Federal Election Commission completed an investigation into the National Republican Congressional Committee (the GOP version of the DCCC) and determined that […]

The reason for the season?

Since today is Good Friday and this is an Easter weekend, I thought I’d share a story that isn’t political, but is timely. In Glassport, Pa., a town near Pittsburgh, an Assembly of God church decided to host an Easter show for children and parents. Patty Bickerton, the youth minister at the church, wanted the […]

Running for the Senate while running from a family history

In the Rocky Mountain News’ article yesterday about Peter Coors’ plans to run in Colorado for the U.S. Senate, there was one sentence at the very end that hinted at a broader story. [Jennifer Duffy, Senate editor for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C.] said that Coors faces intense scrutiny — not just […]

Scalia’s tape tactics — Day Two

Yesterday I talked about the ever-shy Antonin Scalia and the fact that a federal marshal confiscated the tape recorders of two reporters who were covering a Scalia speech before high school students in Mississippi. Today there are a few more details that were unavailable yesterday. For example, the AP reporter did not willingly give up […]

Bush administration vs. POWs

I don’t think Karl Rove has sufficiently thought through the politics of this one. The Bush administration urged an appeals court Wednesday to overturn a judge’s order awarding nearly $1 billion in Iraqi money to 17 Americans taken prisoner by Saddam Hussein’s government during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Attorneys for the POWs, who were […]

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

I can appreciate that everyone needs a break once in a while, but this is getting ridiculous. This is Bush’s 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News. Adding his 78 visits […]

Meet the new policy; it’s the same as the old policy

Condoleezza Rice, at yesterday’s 9/11 Commission hearing: “[The Bush administration] also moved to develop a new and comprehensive strategy to eliminate the al Qaeda terrorist network. President Bush understood the threat, and he understood its importance. He made clear to us that he did not want to respond to al Qaeda one attack at a […]