For supporters of the Bush administration's crusade against civil liberties in its war on terror, today's rulings in the 2004 Madrid bombing case will no doubt provide more justification for detainee torture, the suspension of habeas corpus, military commissions and other clearly extra-constitutional measures. In Madrid today as in so many terrorism prosecution trials in […]

A little over a week ago, I documented the disturbing parallels between the confirmation testimonies of Attorney General nominees Michael Mukasey and Alberto Gonzales. To the dismay of many members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mukasey like Gonzales decried the 2002 Bybee memo authorizing detainee torture, while withholding judgment on the legality of specific techniques […]

On Sunday, First Lady Laura Bush revealed a new side of her persona to the American people: policymaker. Describing herself "involved for a long time in policy," Mrs. Bush decried the Stepfordesque stereotype she claimed is applied to her. But given her past public statements and policy roles to date, Americans should be forgiven for […]

As it turns out, the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. The force of gravity still applies on planet Earth. And for at least this one day, a minimal standard of punishment for ethical wrongdoing applies to the Bush administration. Just one day after I proclaimed that no official would pay […]

ThinkProgress speculates this morning that President Bush will give a recess appointment to James Holsinger, his bizarre and wildly homophobic nominee for Surgeon General. For the White House, Holsinger's quackery and desire to "cure gays" not only makes him a very attractive successor to the disagreeable Richard Carmona. More importantly, a recess appointment in the […]

One of the hallmarks of Bush administration has been its steadfast commitment to rewarding its own incompetence, fraud and even criminality. While Katrina fall-guy Michael Brown was quietly edged out, the leading architects of the fiasco in Iraq including George Tenet, Tommy Franks and Paul Bremer received Presidential Medals of Freedom. Now in the latest […]

Thursday marked the fifth anniversary of the death of Minnesota Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone. But while much of the liberal blogosphere has remembered Wellstone's fighting spirit, grassroots populism and prescient courage in opposing the war in Iraq, little attention has been paid to President Bush's despicable eulogy of Wellstone on that sad day. As we […]

Two stories this week once again highlighted for Americans the Potemkin Presidency of George W. Bush. Confronting Stephen Colbert's maxim that "reality has a well-known liberal bias," the Bush administration tried to pull the wool over the eyes of Congress and the media. On Wednesday, the White House acknowledged it "eviscerated" the testimony of CDC […]

In Iowa yesterday, GOP frontrunner Rudy Giuliani followed Bush Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey in playing dumb on the subject of torture. It should come as no surprise that Giuliani would argue that whether waterboarding violates the Geneva Convention depends on what the definition of "torture" is. Even less surprising is that the same man […]

In Washington today, George W. Bush reinvigorated his counterproductive and anachronistic crusade against the Castro regime in Cuba. As the New York Times reports, President Bush used an address to an invitation-only audience of Cuban exiles to proclaim "the United States will not accept a political transition in Cuba in which power changes from one […]