The leading lights of the Republican Party like to endlessly badmouth trial lawyers. Endlessly, that is, until they need one. Former Mississippi Senator Trent Lott is no exception. Back in 2004, Lott ridiculed John Edwards, saying of John Kerry's running mate, "He's a charming guy who was a suing lawyer -- that's S-U-I-N-G lawyer." But […]

Hoping to bolster support for the surge in Iraq, John McCain over the past year has frequently touted the safe streets of Baghdad. In April 2007, McCain boasted of neighborhoods "you and I could walk through." By March 2008, he reminded us that "there's problems in America with safe neighborhoods as we well know." And […]

Republican presidential nominee John McCain is fond of claiming, "I know how to win wars." Apparently, he also has ideas about how to start them. In the fall of 2001, McCain suggested the recent anthrax attacks that so terrified Americans might be a perfect pretext for war with Iraq. That revelation comes via ThinkProgress in […]

Recently, John McCain has taken to boasting, "I know how to win wars." But he isn't talking about Iraq. As his gutter politics of the last week show, McCain is talking about the "character war" against Barack Obama. As predicted, McCain is turning to the Republicans' tried and untrue formula for success from 2000 and […]

As the events of the past few days demonstrate, George W. Bush was right all along about John McCain. McCain, the so-called maverick who promised to run a "respectful" campaign, has turned to the gutter politics of sleazy ads, baseless attacks and outright lies in his desperate effort to beat Barack Obama. And as Bush […]

Rule #1 of the vice presidential selection process is akin to the Hippocratic Oath: first, do no harm. And with rumors swirling that Barack Obama is seriously considering first-term Virginia Governor Tim Kaine as his #2, the Democratic nominee risks breaking rule #1. Which isn't to say that Kaine doesn't score well on some of […]

There are many reasons to dislike CBS News with Katie Couric. Now you can add ham-handed racial stereotyping to the list. Just days after editing out John McCain's calamitous gaffe about the Sunni Awakening following the surge of U.S. troops in Iraq, Couric offered a pablum profile of the McCain campaign team. In her behind-the-scenes […]

On Monday, the White House announced that President Bush will leave his successor an estimated $482 billion budget deficit for the next fiscal year. But that sea of red ink isn't only an indelible mark on Bush's legacy going forward. It's a reminder of one of George W. Bush most cynical ploys - and broken […]

This weekend, John McCain launched an all-out war against Barack Obama's fitness to be commander-in-chief. In Denver on Friday, McCain claimed that in supporting the January 2007 surge in Iraq, he passed "a real-time test for a future commander-in-chief" his Democratic rival supposedly failed. That same day, McCain insisted to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "I know […]

In a report released this morning, the Justice Department concluded that Monica Goodling, the former White House liaison for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, violated federal law and DOJ policy by discriminating against job applicants who weren't faithful Republicans or conservative activists. As it turns out, 14 months after Goodling admitted to Congress "I believe I […]