Following up on an earlier item, I probably didn’t need another example of why most television news is unwatchable, but MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough offered one anyway. Within an hour of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination: This is just bizarre, for so many reasons. To hear Scarborough tell it, Giuliani “talks” about 9/11, so the Bhutto slaying necessarily […]
Thursday’s political 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: * Hoping to end nagging questions about the candidate’s health, Rudy Giuliani’s campaign offered a statement from Dr. Valentin Fuster, the former mayor’s doctor for the past seven years, who said the candidate […]
How will Bhutto’s assassination affect the presidential race?
I got my first email that Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto had been killed at 8:47 a.m. this morning. I started hearing about “what this means” for the U.S. presidential race by about 8:56 a.m. (By 9:30 a.m., Joe Scarborough apparently was telling MSNBC viewers that this is good news for Rudy Giuliani.) It’s just […]
Dystopian sci-fi shapes White House stem-cell policy
One of the more annoying qualities of the Bush White House’s policy on stem-cell research the last several years is its incoherence. It’s not just that the president has blocked potentially life-saving medical research, it’s that his rationale for doing so ends up contradicting itself. As Bush sees it, embryos are human life, and should […]
Benazir Bhutto reportedly killed in Pakistan
Stunning news out of Pakistan this morning: Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in a suicide bombing that also killed at least 20 others at a campaign rally, a party aide and a military official said. “At 6:16 p.m. she expired,” said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto’s party who was at […]
ARG poll raises eyebrows — but is it reliable?
On Monday, the American Research Group released a very surprising new poll out of Iowa, which has caused quite a stir in the political world this week. The ARG results showed the Democratic presidential race shaping up this way: Clinton 34% (last week 29%) Edwards 20% (last week 18%) Obama 19% (last week 25%) Biden […]
Wednesday’s Mini-Report
Today’s edition of quick hits. * AP: “President Bush, still voicing concern about special project spending by Congress, signed a $555 billion bill Wednesday that funds the Iraq war well into 2008 and keeps government agencies running through next September. Bush’s signed the massive spending bill as he flew on Air Force One to his […]
Clintons score high in most-admired list
As it does every year at this time, Gallup released its annual survey on the most admired men and women in the country. Given the political climate, this year’s results were a little more noteworthy than usual. First up, the men. President Bush wins as the most admired man this year in spite of his […]
Purge-scandal questions still waiting for answers
In some ways, it seems the scandal surrounding the Bush administration and the fired U.S. Attorneys has run its course. To be sure, the seriousness of the controversy was never really in doubt, at least for the reality-based community. The unthinkable became all too real: the Bush gang used federal prosecutors “to help the Republican […]
The execution capital of the country
I think it’s safe to say the culture of life is not exactly thriving in the state of Texas. This year’s death penalty bombshells — a de facto national moratorium, a state abolition and the smallest number of executions in more than a decade — have masked what may be the most significant and lasting […]