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: * Though the news was easily overshadowed by Sen. Clinton’s announcement, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) announced over the weekend that he will seek the GOP presidential nomination. It sounded as if James Dobson […]
The president sat down for a lengthy interview with USA Today’s White House reporter David Jackson, the transcript of which was published today, which covered some pretty familiar ground. It was interesting, however, to see that the president has no expectations about leaving Iraq anytime soom. Q: Now I’ve often heard you say during the […]
As Slate’s Fred Kaplan explained a while back, a [tag]National Intelligence Estimate[/tag] ([tag]NIE[/tag]) “is not an ordinary report. It marks the one occasion when the Central Intelligence Agency warrants its name, acting as a central entity that pulls together the assessments of all the myriad intelligence departments, noting where they agree and where they differ.” […]
When it comes to the 2008 presidential race, polling is so premature, it’s almost better to ignore it. Indeed, as my friend Anonymous Liberal explained in a great guest post here in November, at this point in the 2004 presidential race, the leading Democratic contenders were Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt. As I recall, they […]
The new public relations offensive in support of Bush’s Iraq Escalation 5.0 policy has included a disturbing amount of attacks on dissent. Dick Cheney got the ball rolling last week, telling Fox News that Congress would be “undercutting the troops” if lawmakers criticize Bush’s policy. Tony Snow went even further, suggesting criticism may lend comfort […]
I recently suggested that Sen. [tag]John McCain[/tag] (R-Ariz.) is in the process of moving the goalposts when it comes to his favored policy for troop escalation in Iraq. As of today, McCain’s only consistency is his willingness to be inconsistent. Let’s take a look at McCain’s position over the last couple of months. * Three […]
Because I’ve done individual posts welcoming John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton to the presidential race, I thought it only fair to extend the same treatment to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), who announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee today, with a formal announcement due in March, after the state legislative […]
On January 11, in a speech to U.S. troops at Fort Benning, Bush explained the origins of his escalation plan for Iraq: “The [Iraqi] Prime Minister came and said, look, I understand we’ve got to do something about this violence, and here is what I suggest we do. Our commanders looked at it, helped fine-tune […]
The Beast magazine offers a nice, light-hearted cover story in its new issue that’s almost custom-made for a Discussion Group: “The Most 50 Loathsome Americans.” The Beast listed 50; I suggest we narrow things down to our top five. For what it’s worth, here’s who came out on top of the magazine’s list: 5. O.J. […]
The Wall Street Journal noted today that, with the State of the Union coming up, the president may try to change the direction of the national conversation a bit. “Iraq can’t be ignored, of course, but Mr. Bush said his piece on that in his recent address to the nation,” the WSJ’s Gerald Seib wrote. […]