Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) will officially enter the presidential race in about two weeks. “He will be fully announcing on January 20 in Topeka, Kansas,” Brian Hart, the senator’s spokesman, said Friday. […]
Nearly four months ago, the New York Times reported that the Bush administration had embraced a new strategy for Iraq that included specific milestones, or “benchmarks.” What would happen if Iraqis failed to meet the benchmarks? Administration officials hadn’t figured that out yet. They still haven’t. President Bush’s new Iraq policy will establish a series […]
Religious right groups and their members have been in a funk for a couple of years now. After the 2004 election, the Dobson wing of the GOP thought it finally would get everything it wanted from Washington, which would be dominated by its like-minded allies. Two years later, the movement’s to-do list had very few […]
During a Face the Nation interview yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested she has not ruled out repealing some of the White House’s tax cuts, particularly for the very wealthy. “It may be that [repealing] tax cuts for those making over a certain amount of money, $500,000 a year, might be more important to the […]
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of only a handful of congressional cheerleaders for a troop escalation in Iraq, repeated most of the predictable talking points during his appearance on Meet the Press yesterday, but Tim Russert, to his credit, asked the question I was anxious to hear: “If the surge doesn’t work, will Republicans senators […]
Just to follow up on the earlier post, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), following up Friday’s strongly-worded letter, suggested on Face the Nation that she’s more than open to refusing funding for Bush’s troop escalation — if the president fails to offer a compelling justification for his plan. Pelosi stated clearly that Congress will fully […]
In all likelihood, if every leak of the last several weeks is to be believed, the president is going to unveil his “new way forward” in Iraq in a couple of days. Democrats, in Congress and out, aren’t going to like it — the strategy will probably include an escalation of thousands of troops, it […]
MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, reading a Think Progress post nearly word for word last night, reminded me that it’s time to update the list of John McCain’s flip-flops. From last night’s Countdown: The winner [of the daily Worst Person in the World] is Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona, [who] told us today that he knew […]
I guess this goes under the “unintended consequences” category. In the week since Saddam Hussein was hanged in an execution steeped in sectarian overtones, his public image in the Arab world, formerly that of a convicted dictator, has undergone a resurgence of admiration and awe. On the streets, in newspapers and over the Internet, Mr. […]
I realize that the [tag]Consumer Product Safety Commission[/tag] is not exactly the most well known agency in the federal government, but has some fairly important responsibilities, and how Bush has decided to staff the Commission says a lot about his administration. When Clinton was president, he appointed Ann Brown to chair the CPSC, which is […]