The Carpetbagger Report

It’s hardly a secret that the Republican presidential field is surprisingly weak and unimpressive, which has contributed to a GOP malaise. Poll after poll has shown Democratic voters enthusiastic about their choices, while Republican voters generally feel the opposite. But it’s worth pausing, from time to time, to realize just how feeble this field really […]

After a series of humiliating incidents, Mike Huckabee has earned his reputation for knowing less about foreign policy than any credible candidate in either party. To help address his obvious deficiency, Huckabee wrote (or, more likely, someone on his staff wrote) a piece for the upcoming issue of Foreign Affairs, in which he criticizes the […]

When it comes to kicking Americans out of the military because they’re gay, the occasional defense — offered by conservatives who know the policy is absurd — is that the Pentagon is merely following the law. If Congress wants able-bodied, patriotic, American volunteers to join the Armed Forces, regardless of sexual orientation, lawmakers should change […]

Quick quiz: what’s going to cost the U.S. more over the next decade: the exploding costs of entitlements like Social Security and Medicare or Bush’s tax cuts? Despite all the talk we hear about the prior, it’s not even close — the tax cuts are poised to cost the treasury far, far, more. And yet, […]

After considerable lobbying efforts, the sought-after Des Moines Register endorsement was announced last night, and paper backed Hillary Clinton. The editorial emphasized the same points the senator’s campaign has pressed, touting “her knowledge and her competence.” The times demand results. We believe as president she’ll do what she’s always done in her life: Throw herself […]

With the Senate set to move on a revised FISA bill, and the renewed debate over retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with legally dubious NSA requests, the so-called “Terrorist Surveillance Program” is on the front-burner again. But the NYT adds a new wrinkle to the debate today: the Bush administration’s surveillance efforts are […]

It may be an exaggeration to say conservatives are having a major-league freak-out over the prospects of Mike Huckabee winning the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, but only slightly. In the new issue of the Weekly Standard, conservative Stephen Hayes warns of the “perils of Huckaplomacy,” highlighting all of the many ways in which Huckabee seems […]

Thanks to Billy Shaheen’s swipe at Barack Obama’s teenaged drug use, some of the media establishment seems to enjoy having a new toy to play with. It’s not that reporters didn’t know about the issue before — Obama has always been forthcoming on the issue — it’s that now the story is a “campaign controversy.” […]

Back in October, in one of the debates for Republican presidential candidates, Mike Huckabee bragged that of the “56 brave people” who signed the Declaration of Independence, “most…were clergymen.” As it turns out, Huckabee didn’t know what he was talking about — only one of the 56 was an active minister at the time. Huckabee […]

The Bush administration? Undermining the independence of military lawyers with a dubious power grab? You don’t say. The Bush administration is pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers, escalating a conflict over the independence of uniformed attorneys who have repeatedly raised objections to the White House’s policies toward prisoners in the war […]