Uncategorized
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White House using “Defeatocrat”?
The Guardian reports that Bush administration officials refer to anti-war Democrats as “Defeatocrats”: The speech was aimed primarily at what White House officials privately describe as the “Defeatocrats”, the Democratic congressmen trying to push Mr Bush into an early withdrawal. If true, it’s another indication of this administration’s poisonous attitude toward dissent. PS Maybe the
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Jon Chait on Bill Kristol’s intellectual thuggery
Jon Chait smacks down Bill Kristol’s anti-dissent agitprop in the latest issue of TNR (sub. req.): Kristol’s sensibility is perfectly summed up in one representative passage from a recent issue. The topic was The New Republic’s decision to publish an essay by Scott Beauchamp, an American soldier serving in Iraq, detailing some repugnant acts he
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Did Bush’s education push in 2000 work?
Ross Douthat picks up a potentially misleading Karl Rove talking point from Josh Green’s Atlantic story: As Josh Green notes, quoting Rove, “people who named education as their top issue voted for the Democrat over the Republican 76–16 percent in the 1996 presidential election, but just 52–44 in 2000.” The problem is that this change
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Bush’s “USA”-chanting “rally squads”
The Washington Post has a disturbing report today on the White House manual on how to deal with protesters during President Bush’s speeches. The worst part, I think, is this passage, which deals with how to counter those demonstrators who do get in: To counter any demonstrators who do get in, advance teams are told
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John McCain’s new, sh***y bus
John McCain’s new campaign manager has some straight talk about the stripped-down bus that is replacing the lavish Straight Talk Express they used earlier in the campaign: John McCain’s new steward of the Straight Talk Express, campaign manager Ricky Davis, says that he’s been uncovering old bills and invoices for extravagant purchases that just don’t
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Edwards draft scare tactics
It’s depressing to see the Edwards campaign sending out an email (PDF) with the subject line “Stop the Draft Before It Starts”: This is an obvious exaggeration of an offhand remark by a general (though Bonior does at least clarify that the “Pentagon is now denying” that a draft is being considered). Using the prospect
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The high cost of bipartisanship
Matthew Yglesias reminds us of the racial apartheid that made the bipartisanship of mid-20th century America possible: [I]t really is remarkable that for all the bellyaching about the decline of bipartisan behavior in DC there’s very little attention paid to the fact that there are actual reasons this has happened beyond Newt Gingrich being a
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1/2 Hour News Hour no more
I knew the reviews for Fox’s “1/2 Hour News Hour” were bad, but I didn’t know they were this bad: When the “1/2 Hour News Hour” made its debut in February, the weekly satire was panned by critics, gaining the unwelcome distinction of being the worst-rated program ever on MetaCritic.com. But it was well-received by
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Blogging synergies
Yes, yes, there are a lot of Hillary posts. That’s what happens when you listen to a Democratic debate in the car. More on Karl Rove and other subjects soon…
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Why Hillary’s unfavorables aren’t like Bill’s
I’ve repeatedly pointed out that Hillary Clinton’s high unfavorables make her a weak general election candidate. But I didn’t know that her husband started his general election campaign with similarly awful numbers: When Karl Rove said yesterday that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s unfavorable rating was in the “high 40s,” maybe he hadn’t seen the most