Month: October 2006
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LAT runs two thuggish op-eds
Why is the Los Angeles Times giving a platform to endorsements of thuggish behavior? Last Friday, the Times ran an op-ed by controversial gay activist Michelangelo Signorile complaining that Mark Foley had not been previously outed and calling for the press to out public figures when it “is relevant to a larger story.” On the
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Brownback: Dems want to weaken anti-terror
The GOP email list is burning up with vicious smears against the Democratic Party. Last week, President Bush said Democrats “will wave the white flag of surrender in the global war on terror.” Yesterday, RNC chairman Ken Mehlman suggested that Democrats do not want to interrogate terrorists, stating that “84% of the Democrats in the
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Marshall suggests 2004 election stolen
What happened to Josh Marshall? He’s one of my favorite bloggers, but lately he’s been sounding increasingly conspiracy-obsessed. In late September, Marshall made the joke “Time to hit the Diebold panic button?” in this post on President Bush’s low approval ratings. Even if he wasn’t serious, the suggestion of conspiracies to rig elections using electronic
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Mehlman smears Dems on interrogation
In an email to supporters this morning (PDF), RNC chair Ken Mehlman escalates the pre-election demogoguery with the suggestion that Democrats do not want to interrogate terrorists: There is nothing more important than protecting the American people and ensuring that we have the intelligence we need to stop attacks on our homeland. The vast majority
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WP fact-checks Bush on tax cut effect
The Washington Post published a generally excellent article fact-checking President Bush’s claims that recently announced improvements in the projected federal deficit are the result of his tax cuts: With great fanfare, President Bush last week claimed credit for a striking reversal of fortune: New figures show the federal budget deficit shrinking by 40 percent over
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Bush: Changing mind encourages terrorists
Via TNR’s Isaac Chotiner, the New York Times quotes from a blog post by conservative talk show host and media critic Michael Medved about his recent visit to the White House along with other prominent conservative pundits. Describing their off-the-record meeting with President Bush, Medved writes: Asked about the possibility of immigration reform before the
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Brendan-hater of the year
Since it’s my birthday, I thought I’d take a page from the Chappelle Show’s immortal “Playa Hater’s Ball” sketch and offer my nominees for the best Brendan-haters from the past year. You won’t be surprised to hear that all of them stem from the controversy over my resignation from the American Prospect. There were literally
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Bush claims “unprecedented growth”
In an email to supporters today (PDF), President Bush claims that “Together, with a Republican majority, we passed tax relief that spurred unprecedented growth and now need to make that relief permanent.” But as this graph of changes in real gross domestic product since 1947 makes clear, growth under President Bush has hardly been “unprecedented”:
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American officials fail Islam 101
Jeff Stein of CQ exposes the ignorance of the American political and intelligence leadership about Islam in a must-read New York Times op-ed: FOR the past several months, I’ve been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” A “gotcha”
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Rumsfeld hero worship revisited
Jonathan Chait of The New Republic offers a hilarious tour through pre-2004 conservative hero worship of Donald Rumsfeld: Nordlinger’s cover story also featured a series of more specific descriptions of Rumsfeld that do not seem terribly prescient in light of subsequent events. For example, Nordlinger gushed that Rumsfeld “must be the most uneuphemistic person alive.