That former Bush speechwriter and current torture enthusiast Mark Thiessen would accuse President Obama of skipping daily intelligence briefings should come as no surprise. That he, along with Dick Cheney, would do so to mark the solemn anniversary of the September 11 attacks is not just a national disgrace, but a personal one. After all, […]

With the year-end expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the looming "sequestration" of $1.2 trillion they agreed to during their debt ceiling hostage-taking last summer, the message from Republican leaders is the same as it ever was. Taxes (especially for the rich) must not go up, defense spending must not go down, and the […]

On Tuesday, the National Security Archive released a trove of 120 previously secret documents concerning the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. With revelations about the CIA's budget concerns in 2000 and the unheeded warnings in 2001, the picture they paint isn't a pretty one for either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush. […]

Desperate to deny President Obama any credit for the daring Bin Laden operation in Pakistan that George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney were on record as having opposed, veterans of Dubya's administration and their right-wing water carriers are trying a new and similarly despicable tactic. Obama, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Romney […]

Here are two helpful reminders for apoplectic conservatives. Until Barack Obama shows up on a U.S. aircraft carrier in a flight suit and an over-sized cod piece, no GOP loyalist can criticize him for boasting about the operation that killed Osama Bin Laden. And no Republican can claim that "other presidents and candidates like myself" […]

Echoing Teddy Roosevelt's famous line, Vice President Joe Biden used a major address on foreign policy Thursday to "promise you the President has a big stick." That provides a sharp contrast to the big shovel Republican nominee Mitt Romney will need to bury the embarrassing flip-flops in his foreign policy past. After all, the same […]

For years, the Bush torture team and its ardent supporters have depended on what might be called the Seinfeld defense of its regime of detainee interrogation: it's not a lie, if you believe it. But with the release of this week Philip Zelikow's 2006 memo warning the Bush administration about its illegal detainee interrogation techniques, […]

This week, Karl Rove took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal in the feeble attempt to undermine of one of President Obama's signature achievements, the killing of Osama Bin Laden. "Mr. Obama did," Rove sniffed, "what virtually any commander in chief would have done in the same situation." Well, not quite every commander-in-chief. […]

Last summer, Congress ended the debt ceiling hostage-taking drama by agreeing to $1.2 trillion in automatic budgets cuts, half of them from the Pentagon, if a so-called "super committee" failed to come up with a plan to do so. Of course, now that the Republican refusal to raise even a dime in new tax revenue […]

Three stories will dominate American politics over the next week. As it turns out, they are very much related. On Thursday, President Obama will unveil his jobs plan which will invariably be opposed by Republicans claiming "America is broke." That same day, Congress' debt "super committee" will begin its work to slash $1.5 trillion from […]