From Politico: By MIKE ALLEN (full article here )
A new playbook for House Republicans urges them to run essentially as independents, showing empathy for voters, emphasizing local issues and ignoring many traditional party campaign practices.
(more…)
“The GOP, should I be the nominee, can say whatever they want to say about me, my track record,” Obama said. “If they think that they’re going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful because that I find unacceptable, the notion that you start attacking my wife or my family.”
If you listen closely to the two-minute radio address that 12-year-old Graeme Frost delivered last week for the Democrats, you can hear the lingering effects of the 2004 car crash that put him into a coma for a week and left one of his vocal chords paralyzed. “Most kids my age probably haven’t heard of CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program,” he says in a voice that sounds weak and stressed. “But I know all about it, because if it weren’t for CHIP, I might not be here today.”
First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea. I’m happy that the President’s willing to do something bad for the kids.
By GAIL COLLINS
Published: July 28, 2007
The star of the Democratic Party of New York, whose sway is currently only slightly less sweeping than the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, has been totally rolled by the 78-year-old leader of the State Senate Republicans.
This morning, John Yoo, a Berkeley law school professor and former lawyer for the Bush administration, writes* on the WSJ op-ed page that the Democrats’ attack on Bush’s assertion of executive privilege shows a blatant disregard for the Constitution. And he says that President Clinton’s “personal recklessness” — he asserted the privilege during the Monica Lewinsky scandal — “undermined executive privilege for all future presidents. (via WSJ blog)
Glenn Greenwald
Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond of Missouri, one of George Bush’s most blindly loyal Senatorial servants, wrote a letter yesterday to the New York Times which contained a startling admission tossed in as a throwaway line:
It is clear that if we abandon Iraq as some want us to do right now, Al Qaeda will establish a safe haven there. This would give terrorists the resources of the petroleum-rich country to finance their operations, significantly increasing the threat of future attacks on the United States. While I agree that we had the wrong plan for three years, we now have the right one, and the right man to lead it. The proper conclusion to be drawn from the N.I.E. findings is that Congress and the American people must remain vigilant and committed to the war on terror and its central front in Iraq.
For a sign of these strange times, look no farther than Upper Darby.
The traditionally Republican township is terrified to be associated with President Bush. A lawyer representing Upper Darby in a civil-rights lawsuit went so far as to beg the judge not to allow Bush’s name to be uttered in court.
The wife of Louisiana Senator David Vitter is apparently more forgiving than she once let on.
Vitter’s phone number has turned up on a list kept by the so-called “DC Madam,” who’s accused of running a prostitution ring. Vitter says the phone records are from before he ran for the Senate. And in a statement, he says he’s made peace with his wife, and with God. He said he’s sorry for a “serious sin.”
He may have reason to be grateful for his wife’s forgiveness, judging from comments she made seven years ago. Back then, Wendy Vitter told Newhouse News Service she could not be as forgiving as Hillary Rodham Clinton or the wife of Republican Congressman Robert Livingston, who admitted to extramarital affairs and quit Congress.
Vitter instead said she was “a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt,” who drew worldwide attention after she cut off her husband’s penis in 1993.
(nudge, nudge, wink, wink.)
Nicholson’s primary qualification for the VA job was serving as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1997 to 2000, “raising close to $380 million for the 2000 cycle.” In March, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) called for his resignation, noting that his appointment was purely political and looked “like a Brownie situation.”
In February, Nicholson tried to downplay the number of injured veterans, claiming that “a lot of them come in for dental problems.”
And the leading Republican presidential candidate is … none of the above.
The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that nearly a quarter of Republicans are unwilling to back top-tier hopefuls Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain or Mitt Romney
Vitter’s Political Hypocrisy Far Worse Than A “Sin”
More on Mr. “Family Values” Vitter and the prostitute scandal
Vitter Dodges Cameras On Return To Capitol
By PAUL KRUGMAN
During the 2000 presidential campaign, Ralph Nader mocked politicians of both parties as “Republicrats,” equally subservient to corporations and the wealthy. It was nonsense, of course: the modern G.O.P. is so devoted to the cause of making the rich richer that it makes even the most business-friendly Democrats look like F.D.R.
“This title from the AP says everything you need to know about the last 7 years of having a king… if you are discerning enough.” ~Willie B. Merle
Wednesday June 27, 2007 By ANNE FLAHERTY
Republican support for the Iraq war is slipping by the day.
“We must not abandon our mission, but we must begin a transition where the Iraqi government and its neighbors play a larger role in stabilizing Iraq,” Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, wrote in a letter to Bush.
“At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001 ], and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country”
Bradley Schlozman is slated to testify Tuesday in the U.S. attorneys investigation.
“He viewed me as the enemy. He viewed most career attorneys as the enemy,” said Joseph D. Rich, a former chief of the department’s voting-rights section.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was known as a worldly and even hedonistic guy. But he appears to have spotted a political opening for his planned comeback, convincing right-wing Christians that they are being persecuted by “radical secularists.” In what sounds like a year-round version of the “war on Christmas” complaint, Gingrich wants the fundamentalist Christian base of the Republican Party to view themselves as the victims and him as their defender.
May 20, 2007
May 30, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By MAUREEN DOWD
The odd thing is that conservatives wear pinstriped suits. They love the ancients so much that they really should be walking around in togas. The main contribution of the Greeks to modern American politics may have been Michael Dukakis, who once climbed the Acropolis in wingtips.
(more…)
You have a man who achieved hero status during the Vietnam War and yet later in his life he’s exposed as being completely besotted with greed
May 20, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By FRANK RICH
HARD as it is to believe now, Jerry Falwell came in second only to Ronald Reagan in a 1983 Good Housekeeping poll anointing “the most admired man in America.” By September 2001, even the Bush administration was looking for a way to ditch the preacher who had joined Pat Robertson on TV to pin the 9/11 attacks on feminists, abortionists, gays and, implicitly, Teletubbies. As David Kuo, a former Bush official for faith-based initiatives, tells the story in his book “Tempting Faith,” the Reverend Falwell was given a ticket to the Washington National Cathedral memorial service that week only on the strict condition that he stay away from reporters and cameras. Mr. Falwell obeyed, though once inside he cracked jokes (“Whoa, does she look frumpy,” he said of Barbara Bush) and chortled nonstop. (more…)
May 18, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By PAUL KRUGMAN
I’ve been looking at the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and I’ve come to a disturbing conclusion: maybe we’ve all been too hard on President Bush. (more…)
May 15, 2007, 5:49 pm
Campaigning for History
Reflections on the American Presidency in a Political Season
By David Greenberg
For years now, Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, has been generating admiring news stories by publicly distancing himself from the Bush administration. Sunday morning he did it again by inching still further away from the hapless president.
(more…)
Republicans, who once cited the Iraqi elections as vindication for the invasion and all the killing that followed, are now fed up with the government that those elections wrought.
May 13, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By FRANK RICH
OF course you didn’t watch the first Republican presidential debate on MSNBC. Even the party’s most loyal base didn’t abandon Fox News, where Bill O’Reilly, interviewing the already overexposed George Tenet, drew far more viewers. Yet the few telling video scraps that entered the 24/7 mediasphere did turn the event into an instant “Saturday Night Live” parody without “SNL” having to lift a finger. The row of 10 middle-aged white candidates, David Letterman said, looked like “guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club.” (more…)
“I am outraged, as are the majority of Americans. I’m a lifelong Republican, but it’s past time for change,” retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste told reporters in a conference call.
Did a Rigged Bid Lead to New Orleans’ Destruction?
In a letter dated April 13, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., called on the Corps to look into how the politically connected company got the post-Hurricane Katrina contract. MWI employed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President Bush’s brother, to market its pumps during the 1980s, and top MWI officials have been major contributors to the Republican Party.
Ex-president’s keynote speech at Washington Times bash this month is latest link between Bush and Unification Church founder.
James Ridgeway
McCloskey says he is disgusted with the “succession of ethical scandals, congressmen taking bribes and abuse of power by both the Republican House leadership and the highest appointees of the White House.”
Opponents of Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin spent $4 million on ads last year trying to link the Democratic incumbent to a state employee who was sent to jail on corruption charges. The effort failed, and Mr. Doyle was re-elected — and now the state employee has been found to have been wrongly convicted. The entire affair is raising serious questions about why a United States attorney put an innocent woman in jail.
The Bush administration fed Republican senators misleading talking points about the qualifications of a replacement for one of the eight fired U.S. Attorneys. Senior GOP senators then publicly praised interim U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin for his depth of prosecutorial experience. But government records appear to show that Griffin, a White House favorite, never actually tried a case as a prosecutor.
April 16, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Normally, politicians face a difficult tradeoff between taking positions that satisfy their party’s base and appealing to the broader public. You can see that happening right now to the Republicans: to have a chance of winning the party’s nomination, Republican presidential hopefuls have to take far-right positions on Iraq and social issues that will cost them a lot of votes in the general election. (more…)
April 13, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By PAUL KRUGMAN
In 1981, Gary North, a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement — the openly theocratic wing of the Christian right — suggested that the movement could achieve power by stealth. “Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure,” he wrote, “and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order.” (more…)
White House defenders now acknowledge that politics may have played some role in the firing of eight federal prosecutors, but they still insist that the first replacement — J. Timothy Griffin — measures up as a talented and experienced prosecutor. New evidence, however, suggests that Griffin’s courtroom experience is less impressive than his official biography and top Republicans assert.
GOP Insider Vic Gold Launches a Broadside at the State of the Party
The Republican activist’s new book is “Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP.”
April 2, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By PAUL KRUGMAN
I have a theory about the Bush administration abuses of power that are now, finally, coming to light. Ultimately, I believe, they were driven by rising income inequality.
Let me explain. (more…)
Two of the three leading Republican candidates for President either embrace or are open to embracing the idea that the President can imprison Americans without any review, based solely on the unchecked decree of the President.
As the third of four members of the Cuyahoga (Cleveland) County Board of Elections resigns under pressure from Ohio’s new Secretary of State, additional potential illegalities in Hocking County have resurfaced with new weight against a GOP executive director already under serious fire.
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
In 1999, Matthew Dowd became a symbol of George W. Bush’s early success at positioning himself as a Republican with Democratic appeal.
March 31, 2007
Guest Columnist
Religion Without Truth
By STANLEY FISH
In 1992, at a conference of Republican governors, Kirk Fordice of Mississippi referred to America as a “Christian nation.” One of his colleagues rose to say that what Governor Fordice no doubt meant is that America is a Judeo-Christian nation. If I meant that, Fordice replied, I would have said it. (more…)
Doan Denies ‘Improper’ Use of Agency for GOP
Witnesses have told congressional investigators that the chief of the General Services Administration and a deputy in Karl Rove’s political affairs office at the White House joined in a videoconference earlier this year with top GSA political appointees, who discussed ways to help Republican candidates.
March 26, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Remember how the 2004 election was supposed to have demonstrated, once and for all, that conservatism was the future of American politics? I do: early in 2005, some colleagues in the news media urged me, in effect, to give up. “The election settled some things,” I was told. (more…)
donkey o.d. feed
© 2007 donkey o.d.
