Karl Rove doesn’t seem to make many mistakes, but he may regret admitting over the weekend that the Bush White House is “indebted” to evangelicals for their support on Election Day. First, it’s not clear just how big a role the religious right had in Bush’s success. Second, as the White House will soon begin […]
Last July, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist first expressed support for the long-rumored “nuclear option” — unilateral change to the chamber’s filibuster rules that would prohibit Dems from blocking the most extreme of Bush’s judicial nominees. He apprently hasn’t forgotten about it. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Thursday urged Democrats to stop blocking President […]
The conventional wisdom had been that Bush would use a Supreme Court vacancy to make Alberto Gonzalez the first Hispanic high court justice. By tapping him as attorney general, Bush seemed to be indicating a slightly different career course for his long-time counsel. Or not. Republicans close to the White House said on Thursday that […]
It’s funny because it’s true. The economically disadvantaged segment of the U.S. population provided the decisive factor in another presidential election last Tuesday, handing control of the government to the rich and powerful once again. “The Republican party — the party of industrial mega-capitalists, corporate financiers, power brokers, and the moneyed elite — would like […]
Retired Gen. Tommy R. Franks, former Central Command chief and Bush campaign surrogate for the past few months, was asked this week about how best to prepare the American people for the fact that the war in Iraq is nowhere near over. Franks may be new to politics, but his response showed that he’s learned […]
Despite concern for Alberto Gonzales’ obvious difficulties with the rule of law, Senate Dems do not appear to be gearing up for a serious fight. I’m still interested in his confirmation hearings, though, because I have no idea how he’ll answer some of the tougher questions. Phil Carter offered a helpful summary, for example, on […]
You’ll be pleased to know that Bob Jones University is not above political spin. A week after publishing a letter to Bush in which Jones called his election a “reprieve from the agenda of paganism,” the school wants us to know Jones didn’t really mean to offend all Kerry voters, only a handful of us. […]
One of modern journalism’s biggest problems is, as I’ve mentioned on a few occasions, an awkward and unnecessary search for “balance.” Every controversy must have two co-equal sides, which readers/viewers must judge on their own. “He said, she said” rules the day, even when one side of a divide is obviously right or transparently lying. […]
You may have heard some talk last week that Bush is interested in improving his relationships with European countries he shunned in his first term, smoothing over some of the tensions that have built up since 2002. Naturally, these rumors about improved relations are meaningless. As was reported in yesterday’s Political Wire, Bush won’t even […]
How divisive was the Bush campaign’s strategy? Even Arthur Finkelstein is disappointed. Arthur Finkelstein, a Republican consultant known for hard-edged campaigns that helped conservatives in the United States and Israel, has said in an interview published in Israel that President Bush’s campaign strategy to court evangelical Christians had divided the country as never before, to […]