[tag]Matthew Dowd[/tag] has traveled a strange and circuitous political journey. A top strategist for Texas Democrats in the 1990s, Dowd left the party in 1999 to join [tag]George W. Bush[/tag]’s campaign team. He bought into the “uniter-not-divider” rhetoric and became a key [tag]Bush[/tag] insider, eventually becoming the president’s chief campaign strategist for the 2004 campaign. […]
Speaker Pelosi’s planned visit to Syria next week seems to have generated some over-the-top outrage from our friends on the right, spurred on by the White House. The Bush administration has resisted significant contact with the Syrian government, accusing it of meddling in Lebanon, supporting terrorism and being unhelpful on Iraq. “We don’t think it’s […]
To his credit, the president showed up at Walter Reed Army Medical Center yesterday and said the words a lot of recuperating troops and their families wanted to hear: “I apologize for what they went through, and we’re going to fix the problem.” That’s the good news. The bad news is, Bush may not have […]
You may have heard about this elsewhere, but Matt Stoller sparked an interesting debate the other day by noting what appears to be a journalistic ethics problem posed by James Carville’s political commentary on CNN. On Wednesday’s Situation Room, for example, Carville, a contracted CNN political commentator, offered some relatively mild criticism of Barack Obama. […]
In 2003, for reasons that have never been entirely clear, the Congressional Black Caucus co-sponsored a Democratic presidential debate with Fox News. It didn’t go well — the questions were slanted, the in-studio analysis was ridiculous, and the coverage of the event itself on Fox News was cut short so conservative talking heads could start […]
Saturday-morning contributor Morbo tried to appropriate This Week in God for his own purposes about an hour ago, but I’ve reclaimed control of the God Machine in a bloodless coup. First up is a flap over a life-sized Chocolate Jesus in New York City. A planned Holy Week exhibition of a nude, anatomically correct chocolate […]
Guest Post by Morbo Time magazine religion writer David van Biema has jumped aboard the “let’s-put-classes-about-the-Bible-in-public-schools” bandwagon. To buttress his contention that we need this instruction more than, say, scientific or economic literacy, van Biema borrows this anecdote from Boston University religion professor Stephen Prothero, who wants to see mandatory classes about the Bible in […]
Guest Post by Morbo The Carpetbagger often writes a post on Saturdays called “This Week in God.” I’m going to steal the idea today with my own collection of stories about religious weenies. Please understand that I’m not knocking religion here, just religious weenies. I am sure that after reading these stories you’ll see the […]
Guest Post by Morbo Wal-Mart recently opened a store in Landover Hills, Md. The move was significant because this store is one of the company’s first in the inner suburbs of Washington, D.C. In fact, it’s “inside the Beltway” — the ring road that surrounds the nation’s capital. This is a densely populated, highly urban […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told the AP today that he may have been involved in purge discussions but he doesn’t “recall being involved in deliberations” over which prosecutors were to be ousted. He added that he’s “fighting for the truth.” Of course he is. * Fascinating profile in the […]