Paul Krugman’s latest column is generating a lot of attention, and with good reason; it’s a provocative perspective on the topic d’jour. I’m generally an enthusiastic Krugman fan — though I’ve been a little troubled of late by his apparent pre-occupation with opposing Barack Obama — and today’s piece takes a few interesting twists and […]
Why deal with bad news when one can bury it?
Towards the end of 2003 about nine months after the U.S. invaded Iraq, the Army commissioned the RAND Corporation, a federally financed research center, to conduct a detailed study of the planning for post-war Iraq. In the summer of 2005, after 18 months of careful research, RAND reported back, including an unclassified version that the […]
Obama and policy details — the little meme that couldn’t
Matt Yglesias noted this morning that Barack Obama has been criticized, even by those sympathetic to him, for being somehow “insufficiently well-versed in policy matters.” Matt chalks this up to a lazy narrative: “Clinton is well-versed in policy but isn’t a charismatic figure, and Obama is charismatic so it ‘must’ be that he’s not well-versed […]
Bush comfortable with the rich avoiding taxes
Following up on an earlier item, the president’s appearance on “Fox News Sunday” covered a fair amount of ground, but this exchange helped highlight so many of Bush’s flaws. WALLACE: [In November, the Republican nominee] would be weighed down by a faltering economy, an unpopular war, at least according to the polls, and — forgive […]
Monday’s campaign round-up
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: * It appears that John Edwards is poised to make an endorsement of one of his former rivals for the Democratic nomination. He quietly met with Hillary Clinton in North Carolina last Thursday […]
The ‘pundit in chief’ takes his message to Fox News
Most of the news coverage following the president’s lengthy appearance on “Fox News Sunday” yesterday dealt with Bush’s defense of John McCain’s conservative ideology. (The president said McCain is “absolutely” conservative, adding, “Look, he’s very strong on national defense. He’s tough fiscally. He believes that tax cuts ought to be permanent. He’s pro-life.”) But for […]
WSJ makes the case for telecom immunity, slams ‘anti-antiterror left’
It’s probably a personal character flaw, but I try to make a good-faith effort to at least understand what the other side is thinking when it comes to policy debates. And when it comes to granting retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the administration’s warrantless-search program, I’ve looked long and hard for […]
Vote-counting mischief in Washington’s GOP primary?
By Saturday night, John McCain had already experienced a pretty rough day. He’d been trounced by Mike Huckabee in the Kansas caucuses, and then learned he’d been beaten handily in Louisiana GOP primary. In Washington state, which was supposed to be a far easier win for the Arizona senator, McCain was trailing Huckabee for part […]
Clinton shifts campaign managers — the beginning of trouble or the end?
There’s an obvious response to charges that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is in trouble, as evidenced by the decision to replace campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle with another longtime aide, Maggie Williams — Clinton is hardly the first to make this kind of change. Last summer, with his campaign faltering badly, John McCain replaced more of […]
Obama takes Maine by wide margin
February was poised to be a rough month for the Clinton campaign, but the Maine caucuses looked like a lone bright spot. In the post-Super Tuesday landscape, this was expected to be Clinton’s best chance of a February victory, and several recent polls showed her in the lead. It didn’t work out the way the […]