The Carpetbagger Report

After Bush won a second term, he entered 2005 in a relatively strong position. He boasted about having “political capital,” his approval rating was above 50%, and he looked at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue and saw a very friendly Republican majority in both chambers. Everything was how Bush and his team wanted it. […]

For the love of God, won’t someone please stop the madness? According to sources inside both parties, the two state parties in Michigan have agreed to move the state’s primary — legislatively — to Jan. 15. This is a compromise date out of respect for Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, who really wanted to move the […]

We’ve all seen the YouTube clip this week — it was hard to avoid — but Dick Cheney’s pre-2002 perspective on occupying Iraq deserve to be fleshed out in a little more detail. At the outset, let’s remember the political and historical context. After H.W. Bush ended the Gulf War, leaving Saddam Hussein in power, […]

John McCain was on The Daily Show last night and got huge applause after one particular exchange: Stewart: You see Romney, like, “I’d triple the size of Guantanamo!” Giuliani’s like, “I’d eat the testicles of terrorists!” Why does it have to be that way? … McCain: Well, let me just tell you. I’d close Guantanamo […]

The New York City Police Department issued a disconcerting report this week called, “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat.” In a nutshell, investigators and researchers concluded that the most serious threat the nation faces come from small groups of disaffected men who become radicalized. The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan noted the report in […]

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: * The GOP congressional leadership realizes that if they’re going to have any kind of success in 2008, they’ll have to keep incumbent retirements to a minimum. Fourteen months out, the strategy isn’t […]

Nyles Reed, a 75-year-old Texan, sustained injuries during combat in Korea in 1952. Last week, the Pentagon sent him a letter to let him know he qualifies for a Purple Heart. But the Defense Department didn’t actually give Reed a Purple Heart; it just sent him a certificate saying he’d earned one. The mailing included […]

Last week, Rudy Giuliani made one of the more startling mistakes of the presidential campaign to date. Talking to reporters, on camera, Giuliani said he was at Ground Zero “as often, if not more” than the rescue, recovery, and cleanup workers who spent a year sifting through human remains and rubble. He added, “So in […]

Following up on an item from late yesterday, FBI Director Robert Mueller agreed to share (redacted) notes he took about the now-infamous hospital visit with John Ashcroft in 2004 with the House Judiciary Committee. Chairman Conyers emphasized revelations about the White House seeking Ashcroft’s authorization for Bush’s warrantless surveillance program. But let’s not overlook that […]

Michael Gerson, Bush’s former chief speechwriter, came under fire this week, when Matthew Scully, Gerson’s former speechwriting colleague, blasted Gerson in a jaw-dropping piece for The Atlantic. Scully tries to destroy the Myth of Gerson entirely, characterizing him as a phony, self-aggrandizing, shameless publicity hog who took credit for work he didn’t do. With that […]