When the Bush administration was making its case against Iraq before the war began, the White House needed — but had trouble generating — a sense of urgency. Bush said Saddam Hussein was violating U.N. resolutions, developing WMD, and torturing his own people. However, all of these claims were, more or less, the status quo […]
The first rule of trying to reach voters is simple: Fish where the fishing is good. This means candidates (and political parties) should concentrate their efforts where they’re likely to have the greatest affect. For example, would it make any sense for Republicans to aggressively seek out readers of The Nation? Of course not. The […]
I’m not sure what to make of this. It could be nothing, it could be something. Vice President Cheney was forced recently to turn over a batch of previously-secret documents relating to his 2001 energy task force. As you probably recall, Cheney’s task force met under the most secret of conditions, and he’s currently being […]
If you thought the already-acrimonious partisan environment in Congress couldn’t get any worse, then consider what happened Friday afternoon in the House of Representatives. Partisan viciousness reached depths not seen for quite a while. First, a little history. For the last several months, Democrats in the House have seen their frustration bubble up to near-rage. […]
By any objective measure, the Bush White House has had a rough couple of weeks. Niger-gate is making the entire administration look dishonest and incompetent, their Iraq policy appears to be a dramatic failure, the deficit is spiraling out of control, and unemployment keeps getting worse. For a while, Bush was able to maintain relatively […]
The Washington Post had a good story on the front page today on the latest developments regarding Niger-gate. In my continuing efforts to give my readers a play-by-play of the scandal, I thought I’d summarize it for you. (And if you’re thinking that my “summaries” are usually longer than the original articles I refer to, […]
I saw two interesting articles today about how the Bush administration reacts to those who undermine its agenda. Both are disconcerting, but when taken together, the stories seem even worse. We begin with Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose now-famous op-ed in the New York Times helped kick Niger-gate into high gear. The White House began attacking […]
A few days after Niger-gate really started hitting the fan, the White House crafted a strategy Bush officials were sure would keep blame away from the president: the whole thing was the CIA’s fault. It was, to say the least, an unpersuasive argument. The administration’s line was, in essence, that the CIA, and by default, […]
It looked for a while like Orrin Hatch was going to try and push Bill Pryor’s judicial nomination through the Senate Judiciary Committee despite the revelations of fundraising improprieties, but it fell apart at the last minute. The committee vote has been delayed until next Wednesday, the third — and probably final — delay. Dems […]
Yesterday I saw that N. Gregory Mankiw, who earlier this year became chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, has written a spirited defense of the Bush administration’s record-high budget deficits, pegged this week at $455 billion. Now I’m not going to question Mankiw’s expertise on economics. Unlike too many folks at the […]