Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, Bush’s former chief speechwriter, has spent most of the year devoting his columns to bashing Barack Obama. The good news is, he’s been shaking up his subject list. The bad news is, his columns are still awful. A few weeks ago, Gerson mixed things up by bashing Senate candidate Al […]
John McCain takes a ‘holiday’ from reality
The only thing worse than John McCain’s proposal for a gas-tax holiday is John McCain’s new proposal for a longer gas-tax holiday. John McCain said Thursday that his proposal to suspend the gas tax for three months this summer may need to be extended longer if high gas prices continue to take a toll on […]
Speaker Pelosi calls the president a ‘total failure’
I once saw a funny stand-up comedian who had a great bit about things one can say to soften the blow of insults. A person could say almost anything, just so long as they prefaced it by certain qualifiers. “That guy is blisteringly stupid, bless his heart.” Or maybe, “I can’t believe how ugly that […]
McCain’s attacks get more reckless, less responsible
In the modern political era, voters have come to expect presidential candidates to be, well, presidential. There’s an expectation of respect and decorum. Candidates are going to go on the attack on occasion, but Americans have a reasonable expectation that would-be presidents aren’t going to fly off the handle and lose their cool. After all, […]
Thursday’s Mini-Report
Today’s edition of quick hits. * And so it begins: “The first war crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay can begin Monday, a federal judge has ruled, saying civilian courts should let the military process play out as Congress intended. U.S. District Judge James Robertson on Thursday rejected an effort by Osama bin Laden’s former driver, […]
The war vs. the election?
The McCain campaign does not wear desperation well. It floats from incoherent attack to incoherent attack, experimenting with anti-Obama memes, and fiddling with smears, waiting for something to stick. Two weeks ago, McCain and his cohorts said Barack Obama was too flexible on Iraq policy. Soon after, they insisted Obama wasn’t flexible enough on Iraq […]
Taking ‘executive privilege’ to comical depths
“Scandal fatigue” can be common under the circumstances. After seven-and-a-half years of legal, moral, ethical, and political outrages, many of the scandals of the Bush/Cheney years start to blur together. Some are even forgotten, swept aside to make room for new, more offensive controversies. It’s only natural, then, to shift the focus away from the […]
Dems, Republicans, and the ‘party of civil rights’
In light of John McCain’s appearance before the NAACP’s national convention yesterday, Bruce Bartlett makes the case in a WSJ op-ed that McCain should argue that the Republican Party, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, is the party of civil rights. (If this sounds familiar, Bartlett wrote a book on this subject, called “Wrong on […]
Gore presents ambitious plan, praises both presidential candidates
When Al Gore endorsed Barack Obama a while back, the former Vice President said he’d continue to present ambitious agendas to address global warming, that may or may not be entirely in line with the Democratic agenda. He clearly meant it. Former Vice President Al Gore said on Thursday that Americans must abandon fossil fuels […]
When media narratives are quietly disposed of
On Tuesday, the conservative Washington Times ran a front-page item under the headline: “Shift on war hits Obama’s liberal base.” Sen. John McCain on Monday accused his Democratic presidential rival of flip-flopping on the war in Iraq, as a pair of new polls showed the Republican’s strategy of painting Sen. Barack Obama as politically expedient […]