Eulogies often tell us more about the living than the deceased. With his glowing words Friday about the late Jesse Helms, George W. Bush offered a case in point. Lauding the legendary North Carolina segregationist just as he did Helms' fellow traveler Strom Thurmond only five years earlier, Bush boosted his Republican allies even in […]

The steady stream of bad news about Afghanistan this week served to highlight two inescapable truths regarding the conflict against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. First, Barack Obama was right that the ongoing commitment of American forces in Iraq is preventing the United States from successfully pursuing Al Qaeda along the Pakistan frontier. Second, the […]

In a disturbing report on Wednesday, CBS News offered Americans a glimpse of their health care future under President Bush, John McCain and their Republican allies. Detailing two cases of patients dying untreated and unnoticed in New York and Los Angeles emergency rooms, the story shows the exceptions that may increasingly become the rule. Call […]

Back in 2003, General Tommy Franks called Bush Iraq intelligence fabulist Douglas Feith "the f**king stupidest guy on the face of the earth." Two years later, Colin Powell's one-time aide Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson said of Feith "seldom in my life have I met a dumber man." Defending Condoleezza Rice's - and by extension, President Bush's […]

On Friday, Scott McClellan learned the hard way that the Bush White House is a lot like the Soprano family. As HBO's legendary Jersey mobster Tony Soprano once put it, "Once you're into this family, there's no getting out." Judging by McClellan's treatment at the hands of George W. Bush's foot soldiers on the House […]

ABC News Thursday provided a new twist on Alberto Gonzales' role in the converging Bush administration torture and prosecutor purge scandals. According to ABC, the new Attorney General Gonzales in early 2005 sacked top administration lawyer Daniel Levin over his December 2004 memo declaring "torture is abhorrent," only to promise him a U.S. attorney slot […]

In the wake of the Supreme Court's restoration of habeas corpus rights in its Boumediene decision Friday, John McCain and his allies on the right have predictably forecast an American bloodbath at the hands of terrorists unleashed from Guantanamo. While Justice Antonin Scalia claimed the ruling would "almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed," […]

During a town hall meeting in New Jersey on Friday, Republican presidential nominee John McCain reiterated his pledge to "get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice." Amazingly, McCain was able to make his promise without his signature line about following Bin Laden to "the gates of hell." Even more amazing, McCain cited swimming […]

On the stump in New Jersey today, John McCain launched a thundering two-pronged assault on yesterday's Supreme Court decision on habeas corpus rights for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. Again raising the specter of "unaccountable judges," McCain picked up on his earlier, right-wing handbook assault against so-called judicial activism. Then turning to fear-mongering, McCain proclaimed […]

On Tuesday, Jon Stewart welcomed former Christian Coalition wunderkind and Jack Abramoff scandal figure Ralph Reed to the Daily Show to pitch his new book, Dark Horse. But while the two discussed Reed's joining Scooter Libby, Bill O'Reilly and Lynne Cheney among the ranks of racy right-wing novelists, Stewart gave the disgraced lobbyist and failed […]