Thousands of Iraqis are desperately fleeing their country every day, leading many to believe the U.S. should do far more to help the refugees, including welcoming them to our country. With thousands of Iraqis desperately fleeing this country every day, advocates for refugees, and even some American officials, say there is an urgent need to […]
The 110th Congress hasn’t even officially begun, but as Justin Rood noted, several House Republicans have already taken to feeling sorry for themselves. Indeed, they’ve not only decided to embrace a victim complex, they’ve decided to put it in print. In a “Dear Colleague” letter circulated to fellow Republicans, three House GOPers are trying to […]
As recently as September, the president told the Weekly Standard that capturing Osama bin Laden is “not a top priority use of American resources.” I thought about the comment after watching a CNN segment today about bin Laden’s suspected whereabouts, and whether the 9/11 mastermind might be in Pakistan or not. CNN reported: There is […]
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: * Outgoing Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) will create a presidential exploratory committee this week with the FEC, but out of respect, will wait until funeral services for former President Gerald Ford have […]
Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) appeared to have weathered the storm. Last week, Goode made headlines for a blatantly bigoted letter to supporters in which he insisted Muslims represent a threat to “traditional” values, which is why, he said, we should pass massive immigration reform in order to keep more Muslims out of the country. After […]
Just last week, the New York Times ran a lengthy item about how much better Congress, and particularly the House, will function under the new Democratic majority. It all sounded quite pleasant — no more middle-of-the-night votes on key bills, no more restrictions on the minority offering amendments, no more single-party conference committees. Indeed, as […]
Following up on an item from the weekend, the Military Times newspapers published a massive new poll after questioning 6,000 randomly selected active-duty members of the Armed Forces. The results ran counter to much of the conventional wisdom — barely one in three service members approve of the way the president is handling the war; […]
For about a month, Bush administration officials have maintained the fiction that the president had not come to any conclusions about whether to send thousands of additional troops to Iraq, and that while a change in policy was in the works, Bush hasn’t decided what that change would be. The claims always seemed far-fetched — […]
I was just catching up on yesterday’s Meet the Press and was struck by just how far gone William Safire is. Tim Russert asked his journalist roundtable, for example, to name the biggest story of 2006. Safire wasn’t alone in mentioning the war in Iraq, but his response was, shall we say, unique. “The Iraq […]
If you missed the NYT’s Nick Kristof’s year-end piece yesterday, it was a sight to behold. Kristof noted that the president’s legacy “doesn’t look good right now,” and imagined a future obituary that described Bush leaving office “vilified and disgraced.” Kristof proceeded to offer 10 suggestions for the president to pursue in 2007 that might […]