Three weeks ago, news of an aborted 2005 U.S. raid against Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan confirmed the failure of a key tenet of the Bush Doctrine, "no safe havens for terrorists." Now, it would appear, President Bush himself agrees with that assessment. In his Saturday radio address, President Bush tried to spin the new […]

On Thursday morning, July 19th, the beloved GOP talking point "up or down vote" was officially declared dead. Its demise was little noticed in the aftermath of the Senate Republicans' successful all-night filibuster to block the Reed-Levin bill seeking to begin U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq. "Up or down vote" was killed by a desperate […]

For those who may have missed it, the official Bush White House /RNC approved list of Republican talking points on Iraq has gotten a bit of a make-over in the past few days. President Bush's staggeringly incoherent surge interim progress report last week returned "We're Making Progress" to GOP mouthpieces everywhere. Then, the Senate Republicans' […]

Just 10 days ago, President Bush's bizarre sense of humor seemingly reached a new low when he made a 13 year old girl cry during an event in Cleveland. Today, the compassionate conservative returned to one of his favorite past-times, making light of the disabled. This time, the victim of President Bush's childlike callousness was […]

With his vocal opposition to the expansion of the S-CHIP program to provide health care coverage for more of America's children, President Bush is returning to the same tried and true formula he first pioneered in Texas. That is, Bush initially fought the legislation on ideological grounds before caving to popular pressure and grudgingly accepting […]

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That may well be an apt description of John Edwards' "Road to One America" tour, his 11 city, three day journey to bring attention to the persistent - and resurgent - scourge of poverty plaguing the United States. But while Edwards' call to address […]

In the Washington Post today, Dan Froomkin offered readers a preview of the fate that awaits General David Petraeus at the hands of President Bush. Petraeus should prepare for his designated role as Bush's Iraq fall-guy come September because, as Froomkin noted, "he has a tendency to celebrate his generals when they're providing him political […]

Some men pay for prostitutes while others get them for free. But whether Senator David Vitter or Rep. Duke Cunningham paid for pleasure with their cash or their votes, their Republican colleagues appear ready to protect their Johns all the same, at least as long as public opinion will allow. That seems to the lesson […]

By all indications, the Catholic Church under Pope Benedict XVI is going to playing a much more aggressive role in politics in the U.S. and around the world. Benedict's denial of communion to pro-choice politicians, his reinvigoration of pre-Vatican II rites and his inflammatory critique of Islam suggest Americans will be seeing a much higher, […]

The National Review, the conservatives' official game day program for the war in Iraq, has finally jumped the shark. Like a long-running sitcom with declining ratings, aging stars and bereft of new ideas, the magazine has been reduced to bizarre stunts in a desperate plea for attention. This week, that desperation took the form of […]