I’ve been hesitant to write about the tragedy of Terri Schiavo’s case. It’s a heart-breaking story of a young woman in Florida who has been in a vegetative state for over a decade, and who has become the focus on an intense political, moral, familial, and judicial dispute. I don’t want to belabor the details […]
Today’s must read-column comes from the estimable Gene Lyons, author of Clinton-era classics such as The Hunting of the President and Fools for Scandal. Lyons’ essay (which I learned of via Atrios) captures the sentiment that I think many of us feel every day. “Either Rush Limbaugh’s former housekeeper has been doping my morning coffee […]
Two weeks ago, the Bush White House started a “public relations offensive” to let the world know that everything is going well in Iraq and that the war on terror is a great success. All of the administration’s heavy hitters — Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice — gave high-profile speeches urging the public to be upbeat […]
The other day, in a post about Boykin’s controversial religio-political record, I said that the media missed the fact that the evangelism flap isn’t the general’s first foray into a church-state controversy. Specifically, in the Spring, Boykin was misusing the military facilities and personnel at Ft. Bragg, N.C., for — you guessed it — a […]
Everyone’s favorite well-armed evangelist, three-star General William “Jerry” Boykin, has endured about a week of high-profile controversy, but he’s not out of the woods yet. In fact, things got a lot worse for him yesterday. If you’re just joining us, Boykin, the newly-appointed deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, has been a religious right-style evangelist […]
While pushing his third tax cut in as many years, Bush swore the latest round of cuts would create a robust job market. In fact, the Bush administration got specific about its claims, saying that if Congress passed Bush’s tax plan (which it did), the results would be 344,000 jobs created, per-month, starting in mid-2003. […]
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), one of the few Republicans in Congress I can respect, expressed exactly the right sentiment yesterday about Congress ceding too much foreign policy responsibility to Bush, while lamenting Bush’s failure to capitalize on his new-found power. In a speech this week at the Gallup Organization World Conference in Omaha (which I […]
Sunday, White House aides had to scramble when Bush, speaking without a prepared text, falsely claimed that the U.S. government was prepared to “go forward with” a new package of military training programs with Indonesia. Yesterday, Bush had his staff checking their history books with yet another screw-up before an international audience. “America is proud […]
It’s been several weeks now, but the public still does not yet know which two White House officials were responsible for illegally leaking the name of an undercover CIA agent to the press. The Justice Department is still investigating the matter (apparently, under John Ashcroft’s very close supervision), but no word has surfaced about preliminary […]
Yesterday, The New Republic started one of those online debates I like so much. In these forums, one expert on a given topic writes an opening statement explaining why he or she believes their position on a controversy is right. Then the other side goes. It takes a few days and the exchanges are usually […]