On the eve of Barack Obama's address at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, a media cottage industry has emerged examining why the President "failed to change the tone in Washington." Writing in the Washington Post, Dan Balz asked, "Was there a way around united Republican opposition?" and reported that "to the partisans on both sides, […]

If for nothing else, you have to give Republican leaders and their conservative echo chamber credit for staying on message. After Paul Ryan famously declared the America was becoming a nation of "makers versus takers," Jeb Bush praised Ryan's defense of "the right to rise" supposedly now under assault. Last week, supply-side propagandist George Gilder, […]

By all appearances, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush hopes use his Republican National Convention address to rehabilitate his brother's shattered reputation. After claiming on Sunday that it was "unbecoming" for Barack Obama to continue to "blame others" for the economic calamity he inherited from George W. Bush, on Thursday Jeb suggested the President should be […]

The experience of the past three decades shows that for the GOP, there are only two certainties in life: debt and tax cuts. But you'd never know that watching the Republican National Convention, where a massive ticking debt clock and obvious falsehoods like "President Obama has doubled the national debt" nevertheless dominate the proceedings. Of […]

Cut taxes. Raise defense spending. Balance the budget. That, in a nutshell, is the promise of Mitt Romney's 162-page, 59 point economic plan. But if that refrain sounds hauntingly familiar, it should. After all, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and the leading lights of the Republican Party have been repackaging that same formula for over […]

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. […]

As he turns 88 this week, former President George H.W. Bush is being celebrated for a lifetime of service to his nation. In the HBO documentary 41, Bush the Elder speaks personally about his career as a World War II aviator, member of Congress, CIA director, ambassador to China, vice president and, of course, occupant […]

On Friday, President Obama denounced as "offensive" and "wrong" allegations that he was behind the leaks of U.S. cyber attacks on Iran and the terrorist "kill list," Attorney General Eric Holder announced he was assigning two U.S. attorneys to investigate the classified security breach. Nevertheless, the usual suspect on right are continuing their drumbeat about […]

In Las Vegas Tuesday, Mitt Romney looked to his own biography in proposing a new requirement for anyone seeking the presidency: "In addition to the age of the president and the citizenship of the president and the birthplace of the president being set by the Constitution, I'd like it also to say that the president […]