There may be an explanation for this that doesn’t look like an obvious snub, but nothing comes to mind. Guess who’s not coming to dinner? Pope Benedict XVI. President Bush and his wife, Laura, will host a White House dinner in honor of the pontiff Wednesday evening. U.S. Catholic leaders from around the nation will […]
Following up on an item from a couple of weeks ago, much to everyone’s surprise, House Democrats simply wouldn’t budge when the Bush administration demanded that Congress pass a permanent “Protect America Act” — with retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. The law expired, the president threw a fit, and lawmakers broke for a two-week spring […]
Waste, fraud, and abuse have been rampant in Iraq in recent years, but somehow, this example seems slightly more breathtaking than most. An $833 million Iraqi arms deal secretly negotiated with Serbia has underscored Iraq’s continuing problems equipping its armed forces, a process that has long been plagued by corruption and inefficiency. The deal was […]
Tom Burka, at Opinions You Should Have, reported yesterday on a closely-held secret that I’d hoped would never come out: “Steve Benen, the liberal blogger who runs The Carpetbagger Report, has recently been discovered to be the sole author of almost every liberal blog dealing with U.S. politics on the internet.” Indeed, in a hard-hitting […]
In general, there’s nothing amusing about someone struggling to find a job. There are exceptions. Alberto R. Gonzales, like many others recently unemployed, has discovered how difficult it can be to find a new job. Mr. Gonzales, the former attorney general, who was forced to resign last year, has been unable to interest law firms […]
Yesterday afternoon, we had some company over to the house, and I excused myself briefly to do a quick post about the controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s comments on the frustrations people feel in small towns hit hard economically in recent decades. When I rejoined the folks in my living room, who hadn’t heard the news […]
When it comes to the political world, I get the sense “bitter-gate” — yep, the story apparently now gets a “gate” — went from zero to 60 in just a couple of seconds. Obama is pushing back hard… …while Clinton is sounding an awful lot like a Republican candidate. It’s unfortunate, but in some ways, […]
Talk about your on-again, off-again operations. Freedom’s Watch, the far-right political group, has, at various times, been the Next Big Thing in conservative politics, and a vacuous paper tiger that can’t figure what to do with itself. In fact, it’s bounced back and forth between these points more than once. When Freedom’s Watch burst upon […]
There was a point, about a year ago, at which top-ranking Bush administration officials emphasized that the U.S. military commitment to Iraq is not “open-ended.” Dems were emphasizing the need for a timeline for withdrawal, and the president tried to awkwardly thread a needle: we can’t leave now, we can’t stay forever, so we’ll head […]
First up from the God machine this week is an eyebrow-raising column about why Americans couldn’t possibly vote for a non-believer as president. The very idea is remarkably remote. Gallup did a poll last year and found that Americans would sooner vote for anyone other than an atheist. But far-right commentator Michael Medved devoted his […]