There was a point a few months ago in which the anticipation in Republican circles about Fred Thompson’s candidacy was palpable. The GOP’s three most-competitive candidates — Romney, Giuliani, and McCain — each caused consternation, for one reason or another, among conservatives, and Thompson was going to be the guy on the white horse who […]
The mass exodus of the president’s top advisors isn’t quite over yet; Frances Fragos Townsend has decided to cash in on her White House experience and enter the private sector. Fran Townsend, the leading White House-based terrorism adviser who gave public updates on the extent of the threat to U.S. security, is stepping down after […]
I don’t want to alarm anyone, but it appears that Rudy Giuliani plans to use the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as some kind of selling point for his presidential campaign. Shocking, I know. Apparently, this surprising revelation has just reached the New York Post, which reported this morning that Giuliani is apparently starting […]
Over the weekend, the big political brouhaha was over a three-sentence “scoop” in Bob Novak’s latest column. Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party’s presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature […]
Last week, after a classless supporter asked John McCain, “How do we beat the bitch?” the senator responded, “That’s an excellent question.” Within 48 hours of the exchange, McCain’s campaign was raising money (effectively) based on the “bitch” controversy. But that was last week. This week, McCain wants to be Mr. Civility again. Republican presidential […]
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * Rudy Giuliani is trying to rally support in Iowa, without looking like he’s rallying support in Iowa. His campaign is relying on “a surge of radio advertisements, telephone calls and mailings,” while […]
The WaPo’s Peter Baker has an interesting front-page piece today on the president enjoying a few disaster-free weeks. After years of one calamity after another, Bush and his team believe they’ve reestablished their footing. The public, meanwhile, isn’t impressed. In many ways, the shifting political fortunes may owe as much to the absence of bad […]
For years, the White House has chosen to put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the backburner. Actually, that’s probably overly generous — the Bush gang has preferred to ignore the problem altogether. The good news is, the administration is now poised to hold a major Middle East peace conference. The bad news is, no one seems […]
In August, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) traveled to Baghdad and received a briefing from Gen. David Petraeus, in which he acknowledged his belief that in order to “win” in Iraq, U.S. forces would have to stay in the country for “nine or 10 years.” This was hardly reassuring. Indeed, for every pundit who insists that […]
It’s surprisingly easy to turn on the TV and find countless examples of why most coverage of the presidential campaign is utterly useless, but Greg Sargent found a particularly egregious example yesterday on Meet the Press. Yesterday’s show consisted of six media personalities discussing the presidential race. It was hardly gripping television — we, the […]