The past week provided yet more examples of God bites man in the Republican presidential primaries. As John McCain, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani perform backflips to appease their party's conservative Christian base, their faith-based contortions just continue to backfire. Just days after his abrupt Episcopalian to Baptist conversion, John McCain has more […]

Thursday's devastating New York Times expose of the Bush administration's secret endorsement of torture by the CIA only served to confirm the worst what most Americans already suspected. First, Alberto Gonzales lied to Congress regarding the administration's policy on torture of detainees during his 2005 confirmation hearings. Second, President Bush's December 2005 signing statement accompanying […]

As White House press secretary Dana Perino promised Tuesday, President Bush on Wednesday "quietly" and "without ceremony" vetoed the expansion of the State Childrens Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). Making good on his threat to block the additional $35 billion in funding over five years to boost the number of children covered under S-CHIP from 6.6 […]

In Washington today, all eyes are on the Blackwater hearings. But the relentless focus on potential atrocities committed by unaccountable, grotesquely overpaid private security firms in Iraq and Afghanistan obscures the larger issue for the United States. That is, mercenary forces simply should have no place in the national security structure of an American democracy. […]

President Bush's hilarious and disturbing "childrens do learn" gaffe at an education event last week was just his latest in a long series of losing battles with his mother tongue. But while some scholars may seek to indict George W. Bush for his crimes against the English language, a generation of graduate students should thank […]

In the age of Katie Couric, CBS Evening News has become synonymous with journalism as puffery and the interview as hagiography. But on Wednesday, Couric and correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta reached a new low in a fawning profile of former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. In just a few minutes, CBS helped abet the conversion […]

Early in his presidency, George W. Bush was an enthusiastic proponent of "Hooked on Phonics" for educating America's children. Now we know that his ringing endorsement came from personal experience. At the United Nations today, President Bush addressed the General Assembly using a crib sheet of phonetic pronunciations for those difficult country names and leaders […]

As the AP reported this morning, Rudy Giuliani, the self-proclaimed mayor of 9/11 is now to be the beneficiary of a $9.11 fundraiser. Hoping to make his friend literally the leader of the Party of 9/11, Giuliani moneyman Abraham Sofaer is hosting an event in his Palo Alto, California home where guests will be asked […]

The third visit to New York by the bombastic Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is producing predictable howls of protest. While Columbia students protested his upcoming address there and Mitt Romney called for his indictment for genocide charges when he appears before the UN, CBS 60 Minutes host Scott Pelle lectured Ahmadinejad on the supposedly laudable […]

Growing evangelical angst over its choices in the 2008 Republican presidential field reached new heights this week. Just two days after the GOP frontrunners skipped the supposed Values Voters Debate, Focus on the Family's James Dobson lambasted late entrant Fred Thompson. Dobson, whose previous crusades for moral righteousness included his campaign to out SpongeBob Squarepants, […]