For years, the Bush torture team and its ardent supporters have depended on what might be called the Seinfeld defense of its regime of detainee interrogation: it's not a lie, if you believe it. But with the release of this week Philip Zelikow's 2006 memo warning the Bush administration about its illegal detainee interrogation techniques, […]

"Conservative commentators." "Commerce." "New Deal." Only if you pretend Barack Obama never uttered those three phases this week can you manufacture a controversy in which the President supposedly questioned the authority of the Supreme Court to overturn the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA). But in the hands of his Republican opponents and a lazy and […]

As recent polling shows, Mitt Romney has a very large problem with women voters. So, it comes as no surprise that the Romney camp has deployed an army of women surrogates including South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte to tout his wife Ann as a "secret bullet" and "secret weapon" to […]

On Monday, President Obama unsurprisingly expressed confidence that the Supreme Court would uphold the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Even less remarkable, Obama rightly reminded Americans that "conservative commentators" have for year said "the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint -- that an unelected group of people would […]

Three top officials of the General Services Administration (GSA) were ousted Monday in advance of an Inspector General's report documenting a lavish spending spree at a 2010 agency conference in Las Vegas. But while White House chief of staff Jacob Lew reported that President Obama was "outraged by the excessive spending, questionable dealings with contractors, […]

After the Republican controlled House passed Paul Ryan's budget plan by a 228-191 party line vote, Speaker John Boehner lauded his GOP colleagues for laying out "a real vision of what we were to do if we get more control here in this town." But Boehner's "we" isn't limited to Republicans in Congress. As it […]

As the New York Times suggested last week, the fate of President Obama's Affordable Care Act in general and its mandate that Americans obtain health insurance in particular may hinge on Justice Anthony Kennedy's notion of "liberty." While Solicitor General Donald Verilli posited "a profound connection" between health care and liberty, his opponent Paul Clement […]

Following their mid-term landslide in late 2010, emboldened Senate Republicans led by leaders Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl almost scuttled the START treaty with Russia, a pact which enjoyed overwhelming support from the public and every living Republican secretary of state. So, when President Obama told his outgoing Russian counterpart that he would have more […]

After another bad day for the Affordable Care Act at the Supreme Court, voices across the political spectrum are already pondering life after death for health care reform. Conservative Ross Douthat and liberal James Carville agree that overturning the ACA will help President Obama get reelected. Meanwhile, statements by Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney seemed […]

On Monday, GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney blasted President Obama's open mic comment to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he'll have more "flexibility" to deal with issues like missile defense after the November election. Predictably, a "disturbed" Romney denounced Obama's remark as "alarming" and "troubling." But what is surprising is that Governor Romney went on to […]