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: * According to Rasmussen, 27% of Republican voters say they’d vote for a conservative third-party candidate over pro-choice Rudy Giuliani. If GOP primary voters hear about this and believe it, Giuliani’s electability argument […]
GOP contenders back Bush on blocking kids’ healthcare
Perhaps more than any policy decision this year, the president’s decision to veto expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) was spectacularly dumb. It was bad politics, bad policy, and based on bad reasoning. Lawmakers from both parties, governors from both parties, medical professionals, and children’s’ advocates all agree that Bush’s nonsensical decision […]
Bush to nation: The buck stops somewhere in the future
By one count, the president has publicly vowed to “solve problems, not pass them on to future presidents and future generations” almost 250 times. The AP’s Jennifer Loven found quite a few examples of Bush actually choosing to do the opposite. Excerpts from her lengthy list: * The economy is relatively sound and deficits are […]
Conservatives slam Obama over flag-less lapel
Yesterday, in response to a question from a reporter suspicious of why he wasn’t wearing an American flag pin on his lapel, Barack Obama explained his belief that for some, the pins became a substitute for “true patriotism.” The senator said he would instead “try to tell the American people what I believe will make […]
GOP doesn’t respond well to Craig’s reversal
So, Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) announced yesterday that we should forget all that stuff he said about resigning as of Sept. 30, and all that other stuff he said about stepping down if he’s unable to change his misdemeanor guilty plea in Minnesota. He’s decided to stick around for the next 15 months or so. […]
Bush’s torture memos come with consequences
The debate over U.S. torture policy erupted yesterday on the Hill, in the wake of yesterday’s NYT blockbuster, highlighting secret legal opinions from the Bush administration, which endorsed “the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.” After insisting publicly that “torture is abhorrent,” Bush officials “provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects […]
Thursday’s Mini-Report
Today’s edition of quick hits. * AP: “The House passed a bill on Wednesday that would make all private contractors working in Iraq and other combat zones subject to prosecution by U.S. courts. It was the first major legislation of its kind to pass since a deadly shootout last month involving Blackwater employees. Democrats called […]
Obama says ideas, not pins, are testament to patriotism
Maybe it was the polls that showed him slipping further behind. Maybe it was the lackluster performance at the last debate. Maybe it was seeing Hillary Clinton raise more money than him in the last quarter. Whatever it was, I think Barack Obama is having a really good week. He’s starting to act like the […]
Larry Craig announces, ‘I will continue to serve Idaho’
The writing has been on the wall for a couple of weeks, but today Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) officially reversed his pledge to resign and announced he would stay in the Senate. Following today’s defeat in Minneapolis in undoing his guilty plea, Craig released a press statement: “I am extremely disappointed with the ruling issued […]
Coulter opposes women voting
After a rigorous 12-step program, I was able to stop writing blog posts about right-wing clown Ann Coulter, who goes out of her way to say stupid things in exchange for media attention. Alas, I’m off the wagon. Telling the New York Observer that women shouldn’t vote is too good not to mention. “If we […]