A few years ago, the WaPo’s Charles Krauthammer coined the phrase “Bush Derangement Syndrome,” which was intended to identify the madness that befalls critics of the president. It was quickly embraced by the far-right, which insists opposition to Bush and his policies has led to some kind of mass hysteria. Andrew Sullivan, however, recently noted […]
As expected, Bush vetoed funding for the war in Iraq yesterday, only the second veto of his presidency (the first was his rejection of funding for life-saving medical research). The president delivered a four-minute speech about his motivation for the veto yesterday afternoon, with most of the predictable arguments we’ve heard before. I found the […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * The White House announced this afternoon that the president will veto funding for the war in Iraq in about a half an hour, and will then make a televised announcement about the veto at 6:10pm (eastern). * The Bush gang has been complaining bitterly the last few days that […]
In The Princess Bride, after hearing Vizzini say “Inconceivable!” once too many times, Inigo Montoya tells him, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Similarly, Republicans keep talking about “benchmarks” for Iraq. I don’t think it means what they think it means. President Bush and congressional […]
Yesterday’s State Department report on global terrorism included sobering and dejecting data. Terrorist attacks worldwide shot up 25% of the year before, while terrorist fatalities went up 40%. The results were particularly awful in Iraq — the State Department found that terrorism in the war-torn country claimed 65% of the worldwide total of terrorist-related deaths […]
Just five days before last November’s elections, this was the lead editorial from the Wall Street Journal: So, less than a week before the midterm elections, four workers from Acorn, the liberal activist group that has registered millions of voters, have been indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms to […]
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: * The Politico reports today that former Sen. Fred Thompson’s (R-Tenn.) advisors have “begun exploring a range of staffing options,” including talking to potential campaign managers, in advance of an increasingly likely presidential […]
ThinkProgress highlights this disturbing item from yesterday’s Nelson Report: [S]ome big money players up from Texas recently paid a visit to their friend in the White House. The story goes that they got out exactly one question, and the rest of the meeting consisted of The President in an extended whine, a rant, actually, about […]
The National Review’s William F. [tag]Buckley[/tag] has generally bucked his far-right brethren on the [tag]war[/tag] in [tag]Iraq[/tag]. A year ago, Buckley labeled the war in Iraq a failure and concluded, “There will be no legacy for Mr. Bush. I don’t believe his successor would re-enunciate the words he used in his second inaugural address because […]
As a rule, Law Day, a ceremonial holiday since 1958, goes by largely unnoticed. It was established as a Cold War counterpart to May 1, the biggest day on the socialist calendar. Ever since, presidents have issued proclamations that go by largely unnoticed and unread. But this year seems a little different. Bush issued a […]