Bush will deliver a nationally televised address tonight, on the first anniversary of Iraq’s alleged sovereignty, hoping to help turn the rhetorical tide regarding the war. As is always the case, the stagecraft has been carefully planned — Bush will speak at Fort Bragg, N.C., home of the Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division,, using soldiers […]
Generally speaking, when the Supreme Court takes on an issue and issues its ruling, the legal controversy ends. Yesterday, however, the high court wrapped up two Ten Commandments cases with ten separate rulings, which I’m afraid will likely prompt more litigation, not less. To summarize what we learned yesterday, officials cannot promote religion, but they […]
I don’t mean to belabor the point, but Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.) is just a little too nutty to ignore. Let’s review for a moment. There’s a Ten Commandments case in Hostettler’s congressional district that he wants to keep in place. In February, he wrote to the president, urging Bush, as head of the executive […]
I don’t have a strong opinion about whether Matt Cooper and Judith Miller should go to jail (though I think Kevin Drum gets it about right), but I hope that maybe, just maybe, their dilemma sparks at least some renewed interest in the controversy that put them in this mess in the first place: the […]
Well, at least we know who started it. Uber-activist Grover Norquist, speaking to the national conference of College Republicans over the weekend, called John McCain “the nut-job from Arizona.” Asked to elaborate, Norquist later joked that he was misquoted, and he meant to call McCain “the gun grabbing tax increaser from Arizona.” Yesterday, McCain’s office […]
This may sound silly, because it probably is, but I’ve long believed that the nation’s two major parties each had key strengths, and the political process works best when each are able to utilize their respective assets. Republicans are excellent at message development, hardball tactics, campaigning, and railing against perceived rivals, but they’re really bad […]
Dana Milbank had an interesting item yesterday about apologies, or the lack thereof, in today’s political discourse. It seemed to me, though, that there was a trend that Milbank may have missed. Perhaps we could arrange for a group apology. It would certainly save time. The capital has been racked by a bipartisan barrage of […]
Rick Santorum has paid close attention to the sex scandals that have plagued the Roman Catholic Church and has come to a variety of conclusions about those responsible. Unfortunately, according to a column Santorum wrote for Catholic Online, it isn’t the sexually abusive priests or the church officials who covered up their crimes (via Capitol […]
If there’s one point that the White House has made clear of late, it’s that questioning the administration during the war is, using Bush logic, to undermine the country. The enemy thrives of dissension from within, the theory goes, so our troops are literally in greater danger if critics of the administration, especially those in […]
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: * Rick Santorum’s re-election campaign suffered another setback late last week when the Pennsylvania House voted 175 to 24 to restrict eligibility for education payments to families who don’t live in the state. […]