When all else fails, Republicans still have divisive, wedge, identity politics

A common complaint in Republican circles right now is that the McCain campaign seems direction-less. Sure, McCain is attacking Obama, but it’s scattershot and knee-jerk — there doesn’t seem to be any kind of theme or narrative. Now that Rove’s team is heading up McCain’s operation, that’s likely to change, but in the meantime, McCain […]

Don’t let Bush corrupt the minds of our youth

There are more than a few possibilities for a post-presidency career for George W. Bush, but National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez has a suggestion that I really hope the president chooses to ignore. A totally crazy Saturday-morning thought: Wouldn’t George W. Bush make an awesome high-school government teacher? Wouldn’t it be something if his post-presidential […]

Candidates playing for high stakes (in more ways than one)

I generally don’t care for pop psychology, especially when it’s applied to politics. It’s only natural that the public wants to know more about the personalities and styles of national leaders, but it’s very hard to believe there’s much to be gleaned about a presidential candidate, for example, by checking out their iPod. Or what […]

A valuable lesson on the Republican narrative-creation machine

Barack Obama spoke to reporters yesterday aboard the campaign plane, and was still puzzled as to why news outlets rushed to report that he’d changed his approach to Iraq, when he’d done nothing of the sort. In turn, reporters didn’t seem especially pleased to be blamed, and so we got items like this one. Two […]

Dr. King was not a Republican

Two years ago, in the midst of a competitive Senate race in Maryland, the National Black Republican Association went to work in support of Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, a conservative black Republican. As part of the group’s efforts, the NBRA ran ads insisting that Democrats were responsible for Jim Crow laws, the KKK, and […]

The elephant in the convention

The Republicans are planning to throw quite a party in Minnesota in a couple of months. They’re just not quite sure what to do with the President of the United States. Convention planners, the White House and the McCain campaign are wrestling with how to choreograph a proper send-off for Mr. Bush — sure, his […]

National Right to Life knows who it hates, but is unsure who it likes

At the National Right to Life Committee’s annual convention just outside DC this week, it was abundantly clear which presidential candidate the activists didn’t like. But the group’s support for his opponent is considerably less clear. From the speakers to the rank and file at the Arlington, Va., event, there was near-unanimity Thursday in their […]

When the AP drops the pretense

I argued the other day that the Associated Press seemed to be taking sides, rather blatantly, in the presidential election. With each passing day, it appears the wire service is dropping the pretense altogether. At this point, it goes beyond just the AP giving John McCain donuts and McCain giving the AP barbecue. First there […]

There Krauthammer goes again

As a rule, there’s very little point in critiquing Charles Krauthammer columns. It’s a bit like correcting George W. Bush’s grammar — the errors are obvious, but a little too easy. But Krauthammer’s latest column, a semi-coherent anti-Obama rant published yesterday, was an embarrassment to himself and the publication that ran it (the Washington Post). […]

White House warns of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ‘walking around our neighborhoods’

The line between Republican rhetoric and parodies of Republican rhetoric seems to blur more and more all the time. The White House said Thursday that dangerous detainees at Guantanamo Bay could end up walking Main Street U.S.A. as a result of last month’s Supreme Court ruling about detainees’ legal rights. Federal appeals courts, however, have […]