Uncategorized
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The myth of the bully pulpit
As Atrios points out, polling suggests President Bush’s speech failed to overcome the public’s opposition to an increase in troop levels in Iraq: President Bush’s address to the nation last week failed to move public opinion in support of his plan to increase U.S. troop levels in Iraq and left Americans more pessimistic about the
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Bush’s strange personal judgments
Via TNR’s Jonathan Chait, the Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes reveals the bizarre standards of judgment President Bush uses in making decisions: The president is especially fond of General George Casey, the commander on the ground in Iraq. He invited Casey and his family to a meal at the White House last year, partly to size
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Mike Pence dissembles on 1990 recession
Time to play economic literacy 101 with another supply-sider. Rep. Mike Pence, a conservative Republican who ran unsuccessfully for minority leader, writes in the Wall Street Journal today that the 1990 tax increase signed by George H.W. Bush “ushered in economic recession”: We have been down this road before. In 1990, I was a young
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Flashback: McCain party switch hype
Oh, how the times change. With John McCain proclaiming his conservative bona fides, it’s worth revisiting the media-fueled hype about him becoming a Democrat, which included two big magazine articles in The New Republic and Washington Monthly in 2002 and
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John Edwards: Too scripted?
John Edwards has a big problem. He’s a serious candidate who will make Clinton and Obama sweat. But despite being a trial lawyer who often sounds scripted, he’s trying to run as the candidate of authenticity. That’s a mistake in a political culture that is obsessed with exposing hypocrisy and artifice. The way that Jason
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Goldberg: Hillary’s experience vicarious
In a New Yorker article on the foreign policy views of the leading Democratic presidential contenders, Jeffrey Goldberg calls Hillary Clinton the most experienced candidate, but implicitly acknowledges the point I made last week — Hillary’s experience is largely as First Lady; she has no advantage in direct legislative or executive experience over her rivals:
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Limbaugh: Boxer tried to “lynch” Rice
One important tactic in the conservative arsenal is to throw civil rights language back at liberals in order to put them on the defensive. Here’s a case in point. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) recently made a nasty allusion to Condoleezza Rice’s lack of immediate family during a Congressional hearing on the war in Iraq: Now,
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Dick Durbin’s Obama ’08 petition
I was surprised to see that Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) is already running text ads (PDF) urging a presidential run by Barack Obama: Obama for President Sign Dick Durbin’s petition urging Barack Obama to run for President www.DickDurbin.com It’s customary to back your home-state colleague, but Durbin is being a team player to back Obama
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Bush official: Don’t defend accused terrorists
Via Andrew Sullivan, the Washington Post denounces Cully Stimson, the Bush administration official responsible for “detainee affairs,” for his loathsome comments suggesting that top law firms should not represent accused terrorists (Windows Media audio): Most Americans understand that legal representation for the accused is one of the core principles of the American way. Not, it
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NC AG takes over Duke lacrosse case
It’s official — the North Carolina Attorney General’s office is taking over the Duke lacrosse case. Thank goodness. PS Can this passage from the ABCNews.com report on the announcement be correct? Nifong, a career prosecutor for nearly 30 years, was “devastated” by having to prosecute the Duke case, his lawyer said. “It’s devastating to him,”