As Republican members of Congress go, you can’t get more moderate than Maine Senator Olympia Snowe. And as the debate over the size of this year’s tax cut has led to some of the most intense Republican bickering in years, Snowe has found herself where she always seems to end up — right in the […]
Before the war in Iraq even began, the White House had announced that post-war Iraq would be reconstructed by private U.S. companies that won lucrative government contracts. In fact, before a single bomb was dropped or a single shot fired, the Agency for International Development “invited” several corporations to bid on a $1 billion engineering […]
“You have no case.” That’s what Vice President Dick Cheney’s lawyers heard yesterday from a federal appeals court as they fought to keep secret who Cheney’s energy policy task force met with in 2001. This always struck me as the great White House scandal that couldn’t make any traction. In 2001, Cheney was responsible for […]
Two things were true during the 2000 presidential campaign: the U.S. was enjoying the largest surpluses in the nation’s history and George W. Bush didn’t want to return to the days when America ran deficits. Way back then, Bush claimed that we “owe it to our children” to have a balanced budget. Just as importantly, […]
Bob Graham was making his first campaign swing through New Hampshire yesterday. It’s about time; his rivals for the Democratic nomination have been making dozens of trips to the state for months. During his trip, Graham started chatting with some folks on a lunch break in downtown Manchester. Graham was introducing himself to one woman, […]
Since January, none of the major polling firms or media outlets have done national surveys on the Democratic presidential primary field. With news of the war in Iraq dominating the news, and Democratic candidates campaigning less, there simply hasn’t been much need. This week, however, a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll was released showing the […]
Leading up to the war in Iraq, the issue of whether the United States would be viewed as “liberators” in Iraq was the subject of intense debate. The administration insisted we would be and our popularity would make the war go smoother, faster, and with fewer casualties on both sides. After some initially tougher-than-expected battles […]
I’m not sure if any of my readers are watching this season’s 24 on Fox. If you are and you haven’t yet seen this week’s episode, you may want to skip this post to avoid a potential “spoiler.” Carpetbagger, you ask, isn’t this blog is about government and politics? Why are you bringing up 24? […]
I’ve found that politicians will occasionally ignore polls and pursue a policy that may be politically unpopular. Polls, after all, are not always reliable. But when voters speak their minds at the ballot box, and enact a new law by popular demand via a referendum, politicians and lawmakers generally respect the electorate’s wishes. Generally, but […]
It would be easier to believe that President Bush was serious about finding qualified judicial nominees, and sincere when he says he wants to remove politics from the judicial nomination process, if he stopped nominating radically conservative activists for the federal bench. Since Bush took office over two years ago, the debate over judicial nominees […]