The difference between making a mistake and lying is foreknowledge. Given this, it sure looks like Condoleezza Rice and other White House officials were lying before the war about Iraq’s non-existent nuclear weapons program. In 2002, at a crucial juncture on the path to war, senior members of the Bush administration gave a series of […]
As we get closer to Election Day, national polls are less and less meaningful in their predictive value. That said, if mid-September’s national data sent Dems everywhere into a panic, the latest polls should generate near-euphoria among the same people. Newsweek’s national poll, for example, had Bush up by 11 less than a month ago […]
If you’ve been away from the blogosphere since Friday, you may not have heard that the estimable Josh Marshall uncovered the fact that Fox News has taken to literally making things up about John Kerry. The chief political correspondent for “Fox News” wrote a fictitious story Friday referring to Sen. John F. Kerry as a […]
If you’re a Carpetbagger regular, you know the drill. If you’re new, welcome; we do this every Friday. It’s time for my round-up of statewide presidential polls released over the last seven days — a little something I call “Poll Day.” As much as I enjoy going over the data, this week’s numbers are all, […]
Long-time readers will no doubt recall the fun we’ve had with Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.). He’s the conservative Republican lawmaker who was offered, by his own account, $100,000 in campaign support for his son in exchange for his vote on Bush’s Medicare scheme last November. (For the record, Smith declined the bribe and voted against […]
The apparent fact that Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s speech was written by Bush campaign and White House aides, isn’t going away quietly. Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said in a letter to Bush that the report in Thursday’s Washington Post raised doubts about Allawi’s optimistic assertions on Iraqi reconstruction efforts and the […]
It’s a shame this is coming out the day after the big debate, because it deserves broader attention. The Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general, in a pair of critical reports, said the agency has exaggerated the nation’s air quality and undermined court cases against big electric utilities by devising a rule change that lets them […]
OK, two more points about the debate before I move on to other news. First was Bush’s reaction to Kerry’s criticism of the Iraqi “coalition.” Kerry: “[W]hen we went in, there were three countries: Great Britain, Australia and the United States. That’s not a grand coalition. We can do better.” Bush: “Well, actually, he forgot […]
The most frustrating part of watching Bush last night wasn’t his tendency to roll his eyes, or his smirk, or his over-reliance on talking points. It was his inclination to say things that just aren’t true. It started early and never let up. Whopper #1: “We pursued al Qaeda wherever al Qaeda tries to hide. […]
Go watch the “Faces of Frustration” video the DNC put together. No dialog, just 51 seconds of great Bush facial expressions from last night. And on a side note, kudos to the DNC team for putting the video together so quickly.