Given that he’s working hand-in-hand with the White House’s public-relations team, Gen. David Petraeus enters tomorrow’s congressional testimony as an advocate for the president’s policy, not a neutral and objective observer. To reinforce this belief, Petraeus has decided to spend some of his evening tomorrow night with the “fair and balanced” team at Fox News. […]
There are quite a few noteworthy tidbits in today’s front-page piece in the Washington Post about internal Bush administration divisions over Iraq policy, but this one is probably the key piece to remember: Another new arrival in the West Wing set up a rapid-response PR unit hard-wired into Petraeus’s shop. Ed Gillespie, the new presidential […]
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), this morning: “Americans are sad, they’re frustrated, they’re angry, and they want out. And I understand that; there were four years of failure under Rumsfeld. As you know, I spoke out early on, in November of 2003, saying that strategy was doomed to failure.” McCain, in December 2003: “This is a […]
On its face, it’s rather mystifying that Meet the Press has made David Brody a regular contributor. While progressive voices have been effectively absent from the Sunday morning shows in recent years, Tim Russert has invited the Capitol Hill correspondent for TV preacher Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network on for political analysis three times in […]
I get the sense that congressional Democrats are deeply worried about how best to respond to tomorrow’s testimony from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Everyone seems well aware of what we’re likely to hear in terms of their assessment, but challenging their conclusions seems trickier. If opponents of the war treat Petraeus and […]
On Friday, the president was poised to tell the APEC conference in Australia that his policies in Iraq have been so successful, he was able to land at a well-guarded airport in Anbar province and visit with troops at a well-guarded base. As David Kurtz discovered, Bush realized how foolish this was, and wisely decided […]
MoveOn.org asked its membership, via email, a highly provocative question this week: whether the group should support primary opponents for Democratic lawmakers who have been insufficiently forceful in opposition to the Republicans’ Iraq policy. MoveOn asked supporters to help decide how to proceed on this “really big decision.” “Deciding to support primary challenges is a […]
Yesterday, after the latest Osama bin Laden video was released, David Kurtz noted that both sides of the political divide “may be tempted to use bin Laden’s words to some perverse advantage,” but suggested everyone show some restraint. David explained, “Bin Laden is a crazy, evil man. No one should take any pleasure in trying […]
Of all of Bush’s misstatements from the 2000 presidential election, one of the most obviously-false attacks was on military readiness. Indeed, then-Gov. Bush blamed Clinton and Gore directly for “hollowing out” the military. “If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report, ‘Not ready for duty, sir.’” […]
Oddly enough, this was one of the more talked-about news items of the day yesterday among conservative bloggers. Are you still fans of Matt Hasselbeck and Mack Strong after they visited President Bush last week in Bellevue? Or have their political leanings turned you against them? The Seahawks quarterback and fullback gave the 43rd president […]