There’s one paragraph from last night’s State of the Union address that’s been bugging me all day: “Next, there is the matter of earmarks. These special interest items are often slipped into bills at the last hour — when not even C-SPAN is watching. In 2005 alone, the number of earmarks grew to over 13,000 […]
I haven’t seen the video, but the transcript of Dick Cheney’s interview with Wolf Blitzer from this morning points to a rather heated interview. Here’s one of the more interesting exchanges. Q: The President himself speaks about a nightmare scenario right now. He was contained, as you repeatedly said throughout the ’90s, after the first […]
It seemed like it’d be fairly easy. The House already passed a measure to raise the minimum wage in a “clean” bill (no extraneous amendments or tax cuts), with broad bipartisan support. The president has indicated that he’d sign it. The public backs it overwhelmingly. And yet, when the measure came to the floor today, […]
I mistakenly thought it was obvious that the president’s new health care ideas, unveiled in last night’s State of the Union, were awful. The media, however, seems to think Bush has suddenly become liberal on the issue. Chris Matthews praised Bush for embracing a “bipartisan” approach to health care. Charlie Gibson said the proposals sounded […]
Well, this is a bit of a surprise. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts , the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, won’t make a second bid for the White House, sources familiar with Kerry’s thinking told CNN Wednesday. Since his 2004 loss, Kerry has struggled to gain support for his re-nomination within the Democratic Party. In […]
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee began working this morning on how best to deal with the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq. It appears that the number of committee members willing to stand up and defend the president’s latest escalation plan was about zero — the question was what the senators were prepared to do about […]
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: * A few weeks ago, we learned of leaked portions of Rudy Giuliani’s presidential playbook, given to the New York Daily News by a still-unknown GOP rival. Today, the Daily News’ Ben Smith, […]
One of the key domestic policy initiatives of the last State of the Union was a discussion of energy independence, so it came as little surprise that the president would revisit the subject this year. It must poll well. Unfortunately, there are a few problems with Bush’s energy agenda. OK, more than a few. President […]
Over the last decade or so, official responses to the State of the Union — Republicans responding to Clinton, Dems responding to Bush — haven’t gone particularly well. Some have even joked about a “curse,” leading to either ineffective speeches, political peril, or both. I think it’s safe to say Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) has […]
For all the talk earlier this week about the president using the State of the Union to “change the subject” away from Iraq and onto domestic policy, Bush addressed the war in Iraq quite a bit last night. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much to offer. There were the three key sentences on what Bush wants. […]