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: * Jerome Hauer, who served as Rudy Giuliani’s emergency management director in NYC, is criticizing his former boss’ presidential ambitions. “Rudy would make a terrible president and that is why I am speaking […]
One of the points emphasized in the “No End in Sight” documentary, which is excellent, is that through carelessness, the Bush administration inadvertently helped provide weapons to the Iraqi insurgency. The most well known example was the debacle at Al Qaqaa, but as we learned in March, the administration’s faulty planning left millions of tons […]
I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that the White House would try to punish a whistleblower with criminal charges, but this is nevertheless startling. The controversy over President Bush’s warrantless surveillance program took another surprise turn last week when a team of FBI agents, armed with a classified search warrant, raided the suburban Washington […]
The past few years, we’ve taken to highlighting certain anniversaries, many of them painful. The fifth anniversary of 9/11, the fourth anniversary of the Iraqi invasion, the third anniversary of the “Mission Accomplished” speech, etc. It hasn’t received much recognition in previous years, but today, Aug. 6, is a noteworthy anniversary as well — six […]
Thanks to a rush-job from Congress, and some help from a couple of dozen craven Dem lawmakers, the president signed into law yesterday a new bill that offers him broad surveillance powers, including the ability to eavesdrop on American citizens’ international communications without a warrant. How bad is the new law? Details are a little […]
I suppose it was bound to raise eyebrows when, in the midst of the YearlyKos convention, John Edwards said, “We’re about to enter the seventh year of this phony war…and we’re losing.” What’s more, Fox News is bound to play up remarks from Barack Obama, who noted that a black male in Detroit is more […]
This morning’s Republican presidential candidate debate in Iowa was a relatively low-key affair, but this was one of the more unusual exchanges of the event. Following a question about ending the war in Iraq: “Just come home,” dissented Texas Rep. Ron Paul, the lone advocate of a quick troop withdrawal on a presidential campaign debate […]
From Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ interview on “Meet the Press” this morning: Russert: You mentioned that we misunderestimated [sic] some of the divisions between the factions in the [Iraqi] government, the Shiites and the Sunnis. Mr. Secretary, for Americans watching today, many are saying to themselves, “The administration was wrong about weapons of mass destruction, […]
Caroline Fredrickson, the Washington legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the other day that Democrats “have a Pavlovian reaction: Whenever the president says the word ‘terrorism,’ they roll over and play dead.” I’m beginning to think she has a point. Under pressure from President Bush, the House gave final approval Saturday to […]
I may not have made it to Chicago this year, but I’ve learned a few things from the tubes about what the Democratic presidential candidates were up to at YearlyKos: * Hillary Clinton’s defense of accepting contributions from lobbyists was probably the day’s most controversial comment. She seemed to get to the right answer, but […]