On Monday, Democrats began to pay the price for the ongoing feud between Californians Nancy Pelosi and Jane Harman. In one of the first tests of her leadership, Speaker Pelosi bypassed Harman in favor of Texan Silvestre Reyes to head the House Intelligence Committee. Sadly Reyes, like candidate George W. Bush before him, failed his […]

If a period of days can be said to mark the end of the era, this past week almost surely heralded the demise of the Bush Doctrine. On Wednesday, the Iraq Study Group dealt a death blow to the Bush foreign policy's three pillars of no safe havens, preemptive war and democracy expansion. But it […]

The Avenging Angel, punisher of conservative miscreants, enjoyed another busy week delivering retribution to the wrong-doers of the right. In one of the least surprising political announcements in recent years, former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist decided against a run for the White House in 2008. After his SEC insider trading investigation, misuse of […]

The Perrspectives Iraq Document Library has been updated to include the findings of the Iraq Study Group. The document repository includes the ISG's final report as well as its executive summary. The Perrspectives Iraq Document Library also provides one-stop access to all the essential documents surrounding the Iraq war, pre-war intelligence and the hunt for […]

Just weeks removed from their midterm calamity, the leading lights of the right continue to suffer from rhetorical destruction. The entropy in Baghdad, the looming report of the Iraq Study Group and the last throes of a rudderless Bush administration have produced yet another bumper crop of classic Conservative Quotes of the Week: "We've been […]

With control of the Senate about to change hands, Democrats can begin the work of righting some of the many wrongs perpetrated by President Bush. Last week, the Senators took one small step forward, unanimously passing a resolution honoring the memory and contributions of their late colleague, Minnesota Democrat Paul Wellstone. The Senate's warm embrace […]

In a sure sign that the jockeying for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination is underway, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney fired the opening salvo against Republican front-runner John McCain. But in calling McCain "disingenuous," Romney also offered the first pot-calls-kettle-black moment of the '08 campaign. In advance of the GOP primaries, McCain and Romney alike are […]

As regular readers can attest, Perrspectives usually (though not always) comes down squarely on the blue side of the national political divide. But when it comes to Ohio State-Michigan, the most intense rivalry in sports, I always back the red state, or more accurately, the Scarlet and Gray. Which is why for this one day, […]

While the GOP this week wrestled with its new status as minority party, leading lights Trent Lott and Mitt Romney showed the Republicans' attitude towards minorities remains unchanged. In the Senate, the Republicans resurrected Mississippi's Trent Lott as the new Minority Whip. Lott, who surrendered his Majority leader post in 2002 following his ebullient praise […]

With the mid-term elections only days behind us, the jockeying in the 2008 GOP presidential horse race has already begun. The flood of candidacy announcements and exploratory committees this week includes the predictable (John McCain), the improbable (Tommy Thompson) and the ridiculous (Duncan Hunter). But this week's most intriguing prospect may be Rudolph Giuliani, the […]