Faced with negative polls and a pessimistic American nation, President Bush's just completed 2006 State of the Union Address naturally focused on the theme of "the Hopeful Society." But like the stillborn "Ownership Society" vision before it, Bush's 2006 SOTU will be remembered not for its policy program, but for its partisan political purposes. The […]

In the four years plus since the 9/11 attacks, the simplest way to gauge President Bush's changing political fortunes has been his changing attitude towards Osama Bin Laden. In the Bush playbook, the threat posed by Bin Laden is directly proportional to the threat to the President's political standing. Trying to fight back the growing […]

The Perrspectives Resource Center has just been expanded to include a new document library for the exploding Bush-NSA Spying Scandal. The NSA Scandal Document Library includes the latest Bush spying scandal news, essential Department of Justice memos and key laws such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the War Powers Resolution, the 2001 Authorization […]

Karl Rove is widely credited with being "Bush's brain." But when it comes to the administration's dangerous and unprecedented expansion of presidential war powers, John Yoo is the President's mouthpiece. Only 34, Yoo, formerly of the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel and now a professor at the University of California Boalt Hall School of Law, […]

On Sunday night, former FBI head Louis Freeh introduced his salacious new Clinton tell-all book, My FBI, on CBS 60 Minutes. For Freeh, the book is an opportunity not only to cash in, but to lash out. Scolded by the 9/11 Commission and savaged by the critics of his tenure at FBI, Freeh is now […]

In a short statement on Tuesday, George W. Bush completely undermined the entire premise for his second term as President. With plummeting polls in the wake of his administration's bungling of the New Orleans disaster, Bush sought the appearance of accountability. He said tersely, "to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job […]

In a rhetorical shift last week, the Bush administration unveiled a new name for its worldwide war against an abstraction. The old moniker "Global War on Terror" (or GWOT) has been exchanged for the new label, the "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism" (or G-SAVE). The results for America and the world, sadly, will be the […]

President Bush delivered his much awaited speech on Iraq to an audience of soldiers assembled at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. As theater, the President's was a confident rhetorical performance. But if the intent was to rebuild American support for the Iraq war by showing accountability for the missteps to date, providing a plan for success […]

Yesterday, I offered a lengthy preview of tonight's nationally televised address on Iraq by President Bush. In the Perrspectives Guide to the Bush Address, I highlighted the Five Things Bush Must Do to rebuild public support for the conflict in Iraq. In that Guide, I also pointed out the rhetorical warning signs that Bush's rhetoric […]

Ronald Reagan once famously said that presidents should "never say never" But when it comes to the reinstatement of the military draft, recent public opinion polls seem to suggest that the American people think "never" would be a fine idea, indeed. A recent AP/Ipsos poll showed only 27% of Americans favored conscription, with a whopping […]