I don’t want to alarm anyone, but it appears that the Attorney General has struggled to tell the truth for quite a while. In each case, Gonzales has appeared to lawmakers to be shielding uncomfortable facts about the Bush administration’s conduct on sensitive matters. A series of misstatements and omissions has come to define his […]
Monday’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: * John Edwards has a provocative new response to the media focusing on political trivia over political substance during the campaign: it’s an intentional strategy. Late last week, Edwards told an Iowa audience […]
O’Hanlon, Pollack convinced at how right they are
It looks like the op-ed of the day comes by way of the Brookings Institution’s Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack, both of whom supported the president’s “surge” policy, and both of whom write in the NYT today that they were — wait for it — absolutely right about everything. Viewed from Iraq, where we just […]
Harwood auditions for Murdoch
With Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of the Wall Street Journal nearly complete, it appears that some of the WSJ’s employees are already anxious to impress the man who’ll be signing their paychecks. On Meet the Press, a massive roundtable of six media guests were discussing the week in politics when the subject, predictably, turned to Hillary […]
Dems are answering ‘both questions’
The LA Times’ Doyle McManus has a curious piece yesterday, noting that foreign policy is already dominating the 2008 presidential race more than any campaign in the post-Cold War era. That’s the good news. The bad news is, McManus’ analysis doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s easy to tell the difference between the two […]
Tauscher needs a refresher course
Talk of impeaching Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has become increasingly common. The New York Times editorial board even endorsed the idea over the weekend, raising the probability considerably. Unfortunately, there are some lawmakers on the Hill who are a little behind on their own powers. Take Rep. Ellen Tauscher, for example. Tauscher, a conservative Dem […]
The punditocracy’s ongoing detachment from reality
Digby flagged an interesting exchange from Stephanopoulos’ “This Week,” in which Cokie Roberts reportedly blasted the Dems for moving too far to the left on foreign policy. I looked up the transcript, and it was at least as bad as Digby said. The context of the discussion was last week’s flap over between Hillary Clinton […]
Rove still has advice to dish
Bob Novak reports that Karl Rove believes he knows how to get the GOP back on solid ground. Karl Rove, President Bush’s political lieutenant, told a closed-door meeting of 2008 Republican House candidates and their aides Tuesday that it was less the war in Iraq than corruption in Congress that caused their party’s defeat in […]
A new ‘serial exaggerator’ for ’08
In any presidential campaign, critical media narratives develop around candidates, which are often tough to break. Al Gore, for example, was labeled a “serial exaggerator.” It was a bogus story, but it dogged Gore throughout 2000, and raised doubts about his veracity. Reporters haven’t picked up on it yet, but Rudy Giuliani is offering his […]
‘This will be a political document, or it will not be released’
Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee earlier this month that he wanted to use his stature as the “nation’s doctor” to speak out on public health issues, but the Bush gang wouldn’t let him: “Anything that doesn’t fit into the political appointees’ ideological, theological, or political agenda is […]