In lieu of a Sunday Discussion Group, I thought it best to jump right into the big news coming out of the Bush administration. Apparently, in carefully-placed leaks to the NYT and the WaPo, the Bush gang has a new defense to protect Attorney General Alberto Gonzales from perjury charges. Not surprisingly, it’s a weak […]
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration sold fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, sparking a considerable controversy about Israel and a regional arms build-up. In 2007, just as we’re learning about the aid Saudi Arabia is giving to Sunni militias in Iraq, the Bush administration is planning a large arms deal with the president’s long-time allies. […]
In reviewing Ian Shapiro’s new book, Containment: Rebuilding a Strategy Against Global Terror, Samantha Powers emphasizes a point that has been completely lost on Republican presidential candidates (and the man they hope to replace): Shapiro is at his most persuasive when he argues against lumping Islamic radical threats together. He points out that at the […]
As part of the response to Bill O’Reilly latest offensive against blogs, the netroots pressured Lowe’s to end its advertising of the Fox News personality’s talk show. It worked. Here’s part of a letter sent to a Lowe’s customer who had complained about the chain’s advertising. Thank you for your comments regarding the program, The […]
I don’t think Giuliani has thought this one through. Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani called Democrats “the party of losers” for demanding a scheduled pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq. “Democrats have already declared we’ve lost,” the former New York mayor said during a campaign stop in Texas. “It’s really strange. The Democrats want to […]
The political media establishment has an awkward habit when it comes to stories reporters want to cover, but feel kind of embarrassed about. What many news outlets will end up doing is reporting on the reactions to a controversy, as a way of adding a layer of detachment. “Oh no, we’re not covering that unseemly, […]
A couple of days ago, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, raised a few eyebrows when he announced his intention to review confirmation-hearing testimony from Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Specter said he wants to “determine if their reversal of several long-standing opinions conflicts with promises […]
The God Machine had plenty to offer this week, so let’s get right to it. First up is a follow-up to a story from two weeks ago, when the Senate invited a Hindu leader to offer an official invocation for the first time in the chamber’s history. Three far-right Christian fundamentalists heckled the Rajan Zed, […]
Yesterday we talked about a new poll showing how the “progressive” political label has overtaken “conservative” in popularity among U.S. voters. It stands to reason, then, that conservatives, after having tarnished “liberal,” are going to have to take on the newer, more popular, label for the left. As Kevin Drum noted, NRO’s Yuval Levin got […]
Guest Post by Morbo Unless you’re from North Carolina, the name Coy Privette probably won’t mean much. Privette is yet another of the Religious Right’s moral crusaders, a fighter against vice and immorality in all of its forms. A rather severe Southern Baptist minister, Privette until recently led the Christian Action League, a statewide Religious […]