Uncategorized
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The proper military-civilian balance
Kevin Drum offers a typically sharp take on the proper civilian-military balance in government: Andrew Bacevich makes a point today about the military brass that’s been nagging at me for a long time: In determining the conduct of the Bush administration’s global war on terror, the civilians in the office of the secretary of Defense
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Sanford Levinson’s case against the veto
The New Republic has published an article making a case against the veto by Sanford Levinson, a professor of law and government at the University of Texas: I have no objection to a Constitution-based veto, even if it is unclear whether the president should, in such circumstances, be allowed the last word. Rather, I am
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TNR on the Other Vietnam Syndrome
The New Republic’s Spencer Ackerman has an excellent article in the current issue about the conservative tendency to blame opponents of misguided wars for US failure, which leads to the demonization of dissent that I’ve documented so often since 9/11. Here’s how his piece begins: At the beginning of August, President Bush introduced a war-weary
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Futures market: Foley hurts GOP a lot
How big a deal is the Mark Foley scandal? The price of the Tradesports contract for which party controls the House put the probability of the GOP retaining control as high as 58% on Friday. After Foley’s resignation, the price of the contract (which pays $1 if the GOP retains control) dropped dramatically, and it’s
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WSJ: Tax cuts financing war on terror
President Bush’s tax cuts reduce federal revenue, as his own economists have repeatedly acknowledged. But in the bizarro world of the Wall Street Journal, which believes otherwise, the Bush tax cuts are actually financing the war in Iraq and the war on terror: Republicans also deserve credit for financing the war, which is more than
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New design
As you can see, I’ve switched to a three-column format to reduce the length of the sidebar and to increase the prominence of the tip jar and advertising units — please help support the site by making a donation, clicking on relevant Google ads, or trying out the Google software featured in the sidebar. Thanks!
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Bush and Rove’s fart jokes
Maureen Dowd highlights the maturity of the Bush White House in an anecdote drawn from Bob Woodward’s new book State of Denial: W. and Karl Rove “shared an array of fart jokes,” Mr. Woodward writes. A White House aide put a toy that made a flatulence sound under Karl’s chair for a morning meeting on
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Bush claims he “sees the world the way it is”
During a speech in Alabama yesterday, President Bush made what has to be his most unintentionally ironic statement ever: We are a nation at war. I wish I could report differently, but you need to have a President who sees the world the way it is, not the way somebody would hope it would be.
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The anti-democratic logic of Rudy Giuliani
I hate statements like this one from Rudy Giuliani, who was reacting to the “Fox News Sunday” interview with President Clinton: “The idea of trying to cast blame on President Clinton is just wrong for many, many reasons, not the least of which is I don’t think he deserves it,” Giuliani said in response to
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Fred Barnes claims Allen viable for ’08
Writing on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page today, the Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes makes the bizarre claim that George Allen remains a viable 2008 presidential contender: The curdled conventional wisdom on the race is twofold: Mr. Allen is still favored to win re-election, but he should give up any thought of seeking the presidency