A top U.S. military official told Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki yesterday that Americans expect to see real progress in Iraq very soon. Or what? He didn’t say. The top American military commander for the Middle East has warned Iraq’s prime minister in a closed-door conversation that the Iraqi government needs to make tangible political progress […]
Shortly before the midterm elections, the NRCC came up with a fairly clever, albeit spectacularly misleading, campaign tactic. House Republicans would dig around for obscure and trivial measures introduced by Dems, which were perceived as nutty, and then insist that they represented the “Democrats’ platform.” So, for example, the GOP would point to a Dennis […]
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: * Sen. Robert Menendez (D), one of New Jersey’s most influential Dems and a leading Hispanic lawmaker, will endorse Hillary Clinton today. That’s a valuable pick-up for the Clinton campaign. * A new […]
When it comes to Fred Thompson’s burgeoning presidential campaign, there are a variety of predictable knocks. He’s lazy. He’s inexperienced. His most valuable skill seems to be his ability to pretend to be someone else. He considers moving to northern Virginia “getting out of Washington.” When it comes to his infamous red truck, he’s a […]
Yesterday, the far-right side of the blogosphere was delirious with joy over Dennis Miller’s two-minute diatribe on Fox News condemning Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. At last count, I found over 400 conservative blogs praising the attack, characterizing it as the most devastating take-down in political monologue history. You can watch the clip for yourself, […]
At the risk of spurring another conversation with James Joyner about whether or not the president is dumb, Bush’s apparent understanding of the controversy surrounding Alberto Gonzales is rather startling. At a press conference yesterday, he seems to fundamentally misunderstand what’s going on in Washington. Q: Mr. President, I want to take you back to […]
As you may have heard by now, a majority of the Senate wanted to consider a resolution criticizing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, but Republicans had enough votes to obstruct the measure from receiving an up-or-down vote. The Senate yesterday rejected a bid to conduct a vote of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * AP: “The Army fell short of its recruiting goal for May, its first significant slip in two years. The active-duty Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force met or surpassed their May targets, although the Army National Guard and Air National Guard fell far short. With an array of special […]
Perhaps I can offer one last news item before the Senate takes up its no-confidence resolution regarding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. If anyone in the chamber is still undecided, they may want to consider the perspective of a former senior Justice Department official who came forward to say Gonzales has run the department like “a […]
Election analyst Stuart Rothenberg watched congressional Dems struggle recently with how they would fund the war in Iraq — with/without a withdrawal timeline, with/without benchmarks, with/without a date certain, etc. — and concluded that the party may not have gotten what it wanted, but it came out ahead anyway. Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill played […]