The Carpetbagger Report

Guest Post by Morbo Jeb Bush has not been governor of Florida since 2006, but he is still managing to mess up the state. During his tenure, Bush promoted a private school voucher plan. The legislature passed it, but a legal challenge was filed. In 2006, the Florida Supreme Court held that the plan violates […]

Guest Post by Morbo I don’t know about you, but everywhere I go, I hear people asking the same questions: “When are we going to overhaul the Census Bureau?” and “Will this nation EVER get a GPS-style air traffic control system!?” Yep, people are hopping mad. You can feel it on the streets. On CNN, […]

And the moral of the story is, be very careful when talking about presidential campaigns, Barack Obama, and the prospect of assassination. Last Friday, Mike Huckabee tried to tell an off-the-cuff joke about someone pointing a gun at Barack Obama. It was a tasteless, foolish thing to say; Huckabee apologized; and the political world moved […]

Today’s edition of quick hits. * This really isn’t good: “Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric has been quietly issuing religious edicts declaring that armed resistance against U.S.-led foreign troops is permissible — a potentially significant shift by a key supporter of the Washington-backed government in Baghdad. The edicts, or fatwas, by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani […]

Following up on an earlier item, I should note that CNN’s report about “preliminary” discussions between the Clinton and Obama campaigns don’t appear to exist. CNN reported this morning that the discussions were underway, that Clinton was aware of them, and that the negations were not going especially well (Suzanne Malveaux described them as “difficult”). […]

Way back in August 2000, Jim Lehrer asked John McCain about his future presidential plans. McCain all but ruled out running in ’08, because of his age. LEHRER: Finally for the record, you have not lost your desire to be President of the United States have you? McCAIN: Certainly it’s been put in deep cold […]

There’s always a little something fun about presidential candidates appealing for votes in unexpected places. Take Barack Obama, for example, visiting the Cuban American National Foundation this afternoon, where he’ll defend his position of changing course on Cuba policy. “Now I know what the easy thing is to do for American politicians,” Obama will say, […]

In light of the vote yesterday on a modernized, bipartisan GI Bill for U.S. troops, John McCain was forced to defend his position against general educational benefits for veterans. (For the record, McCain didn’t vote on the bill, preferring to go to a fundraiser in California.) McCain responded by changing the subject away from the […]

When John McCain’s presidential campaign faltered badly last summer, there were a variety of problems, but near the top of the list was McCain’s work on a comprehensive immigration reform measure, which most Republican activists hated with a vengeance. McCain ultimately decided to abandon his own legislation, and announced earlier this year that he wouldn’t […]

Newsweek’s Michael Hirsh has an interesting item today on Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) becoming an “attack dog” and a “major consigliore” to Barack Obama, which apparently includes “relentlessly attacking and counterattacking the Republicans on the campaign trail, especially on national-security issues.” In an interview, Biden said that he and other leading Democrats are “absolutely, thoroughly, […]