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: * Earlier this week, New York Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R) said he wanted to see Jeanine Pirro drop out of the Senate race against Hillary Clinton. Yesterday, Rep. John Sweeney, a […]
When Bush unveiled his faith-based initiative and established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, he created “outreach offices” for most of his cabinet agencies. In some instances, this followed a fairly logical strategy. By creating a faith-based office in Departments of Education, for example, the president was signaling that he wanted religious […]
Earlier in the fall, after Tom DeLay was indicted (twice), a series of his Republican colleagues announced they wouldn’t keep campaign contributions the former Majority Leader had given them. In all, four House Republicans — Reps. Jeb Bradley (N.H.), Heather Wilson (N.M.), Kenny Hulshof (Mo.), and Steven LaTourette (Ohio) — either gave back what they […]
Yesterday, the LA Times broke the story about the U.S. military secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish “articles” written by Americans to bolster our image and convince Iraqis that the war and occupation are worthwhile. Since then, the story has only gotten more interesting. As the LAT explained, the articles were written by “information operations” […]
In almost every cycle, party leaders from both sides try to keep retirements in Congress to an absolute minimum. Leaders realize that there’s a 97% re-election rate for incumbents and fewer competitive districts nationwide, so keeping members running usually gives the parties one less seat to worry about. That is, of course, unless incumbents are […]
The WaPo’s David Broder is almost obsessive about his moderation — he hardly ever criticizes one party without disparaging the other — but today’s column is just puzzling. Broder’s point seems to be that Republicans have screwed up badly since they took control of every branch of government, but voters will be reluctant to change […]
After ex-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) resigned in disgrace this week, acknowledging that he conspired to accept $2.4 million in bribes, it seemed the only remaining question was how long Cunningham would stay behind bars. As it turns out, there may be more to Cunningham’s corruption than just his Rolls Royce and 19th-century Louis-Philippe commode. […]
When Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) unveiled his redeployment plan for Iraq, Dems were quick to offer him support in the face of far-right condemnations, but were less enthusiastic about his plan. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, in particular, told reporters, “Mr. Murtha speaks for himself.” That was two weeks ago. Murtha’s plan apparently improves with […]
Maybe my standards have dropped, but I thought today’s Bush speech was slightly better than most of his recent “clap louder” speeches, at least with regard to rhetoric. For example, I was pleased to hear — I believe for the first time — Bush describe what he means by “victory” in Iraq. “In World War […]
I’ll have more soon on Bush’s latest “major speech” on Iraq, but this line from the AP feed is of particular interest: Bush’s speech did not break new ground or present a new strategy. Well, of course not. It’s the exact same description that applies to every other “major” presidential address on Iraq. We’ve seen […]