My friend Eugene Oregon reminds us that that voters in Alabama, perhaps the reddest of all red states, had a chance to remove disgusting and racist language from its state constitution this week — but chose not to. An effort to rid Alabama’s Constitution of segregation-era language appears to be losing by a slim margin […]
Confirming widely-circulated rumors, ABC News reported today that Attorney General John Ashcroft will turn in his resignation, which Bush will no doubt accept. Ashcroft has been telling people for months that he would leave regardless of what happened in the election, so this isn’t a big surprise. I’ve seen some speculation that Rudy Giuliani might […]
Call me old fashioned, but I’m of the opinion that presidential candidates, whether they’re incumbents or not, should tell voters about their agenda for the next four years before the election, not after. But now that the 2004 election is behind us, Bush is prepared to address his priorities in earnest. A minority president no […]
Talk like this needs to be encouraged and cultivated every day for the next few years. Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), perhaps the Senate’s most moderate Republican, told the Providence Journal that he might switch parties if President Bush were re- elected. “I’m not ruling it out,” he said. Chafee is going to be one unhappy […]
Meanwhile, in other non-election news, that so-called “coalition” in Iraq continues to shrink. Hungary announced Wednesday that it would withdraw its 300 troops from Iraq, becoming the latest country in United States-led coalition to bow to public pressure and prepare to bring its soldiers home. Speaking at a ceremony for the end of military conscription, […]
In case it wasn’t already abundantly clear that the White House was dead wrong about the story, the LA Times had an excellent piece today with more first-hand accounts of the debacle at Al Qaqaa. This controversy became significant before the election, but it didn’t stop being relevant on Tuesday. In the weeks after the […]
The White House and GOP leaders backed Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) when he faced an extremely tough primary challenge this year, but Specter, to his enormous credit, isn’t about to return the favor by allowing Bush to radically reshape the federal judiciary. Invigorated by a decisive win and the prospect of assuming a more prominent […]
The race for Senate leadership among the Dems appears to be over before it starts. Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.) stepped in immediately after Daschle’s defeat, telling Nevada reporters yesterday that he had secured at least 30 assurances of support from fellow Democrats — enough to succeed Daschle when Senate Democrats meet to reorganize […]
For those six people who are still concerned about it, the “Battle of the Bulge” seems to have been resolved. Call off the conspiracy freaks. Now it can be told: That mysterious bulge on President Bush’s back during the first presidential debate was not an electronic device feeding him answers, but a strap holding his […]
Some of you wrote in with some, shall we say, concerns about my use of the word “mandate” yesterday. With varying degrees of outrage, you explained that an incumbent who wins with 51% support and picks up a grand total of two states (maybe one) from the previous cycle can hardly lay claim to a […]