The traditional dynamic for recent presidential races considers what the Democratic candidate will do when the Republican candidate goes on the offensive. I get the distinct impression that the Obama campaign wants to flip that equation and keep McCain on the defensive as much as possible. On Thursday, the presumptive GOP nominee walked himself into […]
The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee — the Clash in the Capital
Today’s the day. The Clash in the Capital. The Dispute in DC. The Scuffle in the Swamp. The Fracas at … well, you get the idea. There’s a very good chance that today’s meeting of the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee will be anti-climactic, but as political theater goes, this is reasonably interesting stuff. When […]
Discovery Institute tries to cut down Forrest
Guest Post by Morbo The neo-creationists who espouse “intelligent design” have hit a rough patch. In 2005, they lost a federal lawsuit over the teaching of ID in a Pennsylvania public school. “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” the documentary that was supposed to put ID on the national stage, was a critical flop and commercial failure. […]
The moral imperative to sabotage your own campaign
Guest Post by Morbo I am very weary of newspaper columnists who carp about why Candidate X won’t tell the American people the hard truth about Issue Y when they know full well any candidate who did that would see his or her political career end. These columns spring up like weeds during every presidential […]
Friday’s Mini-Report
Today’s edition of quick hits. * This morning, the McCain campaign insisted there was nothing wrong with using pictures of Gen. David Petraeus, without his permission, in their fundraising solicitations. This afternoon, McCain himself admitted the campaign was wrong and said it “will not happen again.” * As for McCain ignorance about how many U.S. […]
Wexler to McClellan: Come on down
Given that the Bush White House prefers to pretend that the co-equal branch at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue doesn’t really exist (or, at a minimum, its oversight authorities don’t really exist), members of Congress are rarely aware of what folks in the West Wing are up to. It’s why there’s near constant talk […]
On the reading list…
Kevin Drum recently wrote, “I’ve been reading an unusually large number of current events books lately (aka ‘books that publishers send me for free’), and although there have a couple of clunkers in the lot, several of them have been very good. I’ve been remiss in not writing them up on the blog, but at […]
The well-hidden backlash against gay marriage
In late 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Court threw the political world a curveball when it ruled that gay couples should be able to get legally married. At the time, as Paul Waldman recently noted, “Republican politicians tripped over each other to predict the demise of American civilization if the marriage equality outbreak were not contained, […]
McCain wants to debate the meaning of the phrase ‘pre-surge’
Following up on an item from this morning, John McCain told a Wisconsin audience yesterday, “I can look you in the eye and tell you [the president’s policy in Iraq is] succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul, and now Sadr city are quiet and it’s long and it’s hard and it’s […]
There shouldn’t be any such thing as a ‘GOP priest’
I was going through Ben Smith’s blog and noticed this headline: “GOP priest attacks Obama in invocation.” This struck me as problematic for a couple of reasons. First, there shouldn’t be any such thing as a “GOP priest,” just as there shouldn’t be a “Dem priest.” Priests are not supposed to serve one party or […]