Earlier this month, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said she wouldn’t recommend members make an appearance on The [tag]Colbert Report[/tag]’s “[tag]Better Know A District[/tag]” segment. As Pelosi put it, “Why would anybody go on there?” In retrospect, Rep. [tag]Robert Wexler[/tag] (D-Fla.) probably should have paid closer attention. Rep. Robert Wexler, a Democrat who represents the […]
Desperate congressional [tag]Republicans[/tag] have been working overtime to impress the party’s far-right base. An article in the Washington Times today suggests the effort is working. The Republican base is being rejuvenated, some conservative [tag]activists[/tag] say, by a flurry of congressional action on “[tag]values[/tag]” issues such as marriage safeguards, flag protection and abortion restrictions, as well […]
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: * In Tennessee, Gov. [tag]Phil Bredesen[/tag] (D) is cruising to a second term, enjoying a 33-point lead over Republican state Sen. [tag]Jim Bryson[/tag] in a new Mason-Dixon poll conducted for the Chattanooga Times […]
This item, from today’s Washington Times, has to be wrong. Half of Americans now say [tag]Iraq[/tag] had [tag]weapons of mass destruction[/tag] when the United States invaded the country in 2003 — up from 36 percent last year, a [tag]Harris[/tag] [tag]poll[/tag] finds. Pollsters deemed the increase both “substantial” and “surprising” in light of persistent press reports […]
Yesterday, the WaPo reported that [tag]Pakistan[/tag] has plans to build a large plutonium-production [tag]reactor[/tag], which reportedly will be capable of producing enough plutonium for as many as 50 bombs each year. A few hours later, the [tag]White House[/tag] said, “Yeah, we knew that.” The acknowledgment came as arms-control experts and some in Congress expressed alarm […]
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman [tag]James Inhofe[/tag] (R-Okla.) has been on quite a roll lately. Just in the past few weeks, he’s been caught using taxpayer money to try and smear [tag]Al Gore[/tag], followed by an on-air tirade in which Inhofe said Gore was “full of crap” and global warming “is a hoax.” […]
In recent months, as [tag]Ann Coulter[/tag] has put more effort into being less sane, a few newspapers that carry her nationally-syndicated column have begun questioning the wisdom of giving Coulter an outlet. Earlier this month, The Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, had seen enough and dropped her column. The paper in Shreveport, La., is apparently […]
Last week, [tag]White House[/tag] Press Secretary [tag]Tony Snow[/tag] raised the rhetorical stakes in the debate over [tag]stem-cell[/tag] r[tag]esearch[/tag] by arguing that the policy is “[tag]murder[/tag].” More specifically, asked to explain the president’s position on the issue, Snow said, “The simple answer is he thinks murder’s wrong.” Snow’s choice of words put White House Chief of […]
During the 2004 presidential campaign, the Bush-Cheney campaign enforced a rigorous “bubble,” which limited audiences to pre-screened sycophants, some of whom were asked to sign loyalty oaths. During Bush’s campaign to privatize Social Security, a strictly-enforced bubble was used again, ensuring that the president would only take “questions” from those who were already convinced Bush […]
The Republican National Committee sent an email to its members today, “written” by the president himself. It has a lot of the usual palaver — I counted four times the email used “Democrat” when it should have used “Democratic” — but I was a little surprised by what the email didn’t say. Republicans understand that […]