Rumsfeld draws up plan to ensure post-war stability

I have good news and bad news. The good news is Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon have drafted a directive to decrease post-war instability in countries we invade. The bad news is they just came up with this plan — instead of 20 months ago. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s office has prepared a directive instructing […]

They’ll have to do better than this

Scott McClellan was asked this morning for the White House’s reaction to the fact that 377 tons of deadly explosives went missing from the Al Qaqaa facility after the administration ignored requests to secure the site. True to form, he tried to accentuate the positive. White House spokesman Scott McClellan played down the threat posed […]

White House can’t shake Halliburton corruption charges

It’s a little tough to believe that Dick Cheney’s Halliburton received “no special treatment” when the top civilian contracting official for the Army Corps of Engineers points to all the special treatment the company received. The top civilian contracting official for the Army Corps of Engineers, charging that the Army granted the Halliburton Company large […]

More warnings that went ignored

It just doesn’t seem to end. Last week, the New York Times ran a stunning item about the Bush administration’s mistakes in Iraq allowing an insurgency to take hold and grow stronger over time. Today we learn that the administration was warned about the likelihood of an insurgency just before and after the invasion began, […]

More evidence Bush could get the ‘Gore treatment’

In April, Tom Schaller argued persuasively that this year’s presidential race could look a lot like 2000’s, only in reverse — with Bush winning the popular vote, but losing the electoral vote. Over the weekend, there was new evidence to support this idea. President George W. Bush is poised to gain 2 million votes this […]

Zarqawi story gets a little more attention

There’s always been two things that bugged me about the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi story. One, Bush keeps pretending it doesn’t exist and using Zarqawi as an example of how he understands the terrorist threat, when the truth is the exact opposite. Bush invoked Abu Musab Zarqawi, the militant believed to be behind much of the […]

A swift reaction

The Kerry campaign knows a calamitous gift when it sees one. The AP, 8:58 am: Democrat John Kerry is seizing on the Bush administration’s failure to secure hundreds of tons of explosives now missing in Iraq. President Bush “must answer for what may be the most grave and catastrophic mistake in a tragic series of […]

Condi Rice’s weak campaign pitch

The fact that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is on the campaign trail generated considerable attention last week. What went largely unnoticed, however, is what Rice has been saying on the campaign trail. Rice, who started making political pitches for Bush in swing states shortly after learning that 377 tons of dangerous explosives had been […]

The controversy that should seal the deal for Kerry

I’ve been burned before, and I realize there’s no logic or reason to what the national media finds fascinating, but reports over the last 24 hours surrounding 377 tons of missing explosives in Iraq — and a subsequent cover-up — should be the story that effectively ends Bush’s campaign. It’s the last-minute “October Surprise” everyone’s […]

Gaffe list gets another greatest hit

It hasn’t been a great month for Bush and his national security gaffes. The embarrassing string of comments haven’t dominated the news — presumably because he never used the word “lesbian,” which the media really seems to care about — but for a man who claims to say what he means and mean what he […]