An unnamed Bush adviser tries to spin the administration’s poll numbers by telling the Washington Post that things will turn around because public believes the President is “a person of honesty and integrity”: One White House official, who was willing to talk candidly about internal strategy only without being identified by name, acknowledged that “those

read more

As I argued on Monday, the idea that Bush’s speech this morning will sway voters is wrong. Research shows that presidents have little ability to shape public opinion in a non-crisis atmosphere. All the spin in the world won’t change the fact that approval of wars and presidents is primarily driven by fundamentals. Oliver, a

read more

Lately, elites from across the political spectrum have been calling on President Bush to level with the American people about the status of the war in Iraq. That’s all well and good. But I’m sick of the pro-war fantasy that doing so will change public opinion. It won’t. On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Tim Russert

read more

I recently walked by a gym television turned to CNN’s “Situation Room” and the “situation” described in the big on-screen graphic was this: “Alleged Lego Thief Behind Bars.” What a situation! Thank goodness we have seventeen plasma screens to cover that breaking story.

read more

Last week I reiterated my prediction that John McCain’s poll numbers will plummet among liberals and independents as he does what’s necessary to win the Republican presidential nomination, which apparently includes endorsing George Wallace Jr., who has spoken four times to a racist hate group. Political ambition has a high price. Today’s New York Times

read more

I just pulled the transcript from the House debate over the phony GOP resolution calling for withdrawal from Iraq because I want to highlight how Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) went even further than his colleagues in his attacks on dissent. Early in his speech, Johnson offered the standard line: America, and the Congress, must stand

read more

As I’ve previously mentioned, Deborah Solomon’s harsh interviewing style makes me uncomfortable, but she got off a great line in her interview last week with French philosopher Jean Baudrillard: BAUDRILLARD: France is a byproduct of American culture. We are all in this; we are globalized. When Jacques Chirac says, “No!” to Bush about the Iraq

read more

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank has done laudable work fact-checking the White House, but this shot at the Vice President is taken out of context at best: As vice president, Cheney has always played the hard-line Cardinal Ratzinger to Bush’s sunny John Paul II. Before the war, Cheney asserted that Iraq had “reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

read more

I want to reiterate my offer to send a free copy of All the President’s Spin to any journalist or high-profile blogger who would like one. In addition, I want to let everyone know that there are now two ways to look up information from the book if you don’t have your copy handy —

read more

I received an email solicitation (PDF) from the conservative magazine Human Events a couple of weeks ago that begins like this: Did you know WMDs have been found in Iraq? 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium 1,500 gallons of chemical weapons agents Chemical warheads containing cyclosarin (a nerve agent five times more deadly than sarin

read more