Absence makes the heart grow fonder. That's especially true with former American presidents, whose approval numbers invariably rise as their time away from the Oval Office increases. That's one reason why Politico and the right-wing commentariat trumpeting a new CNN/ORC poll showing that George W. Bush now enjoys a higher approval rating than President Obama […]

Jeb Bush, the 2016 GOP White House hopeful tells us, loves his brother. But judging by his recent statements, he apparently loves the idea of being president even more. Confronted by Dubya's dismal record at home and abroad, Jeb ultimately denied the Iraq war was a mistake and comically claimed "ISIS didn't exist when my […]

With the loss of Ramadi to ISIS forces, the Republican Party has launched one of its most ambitious myth-making operations in recent memory: Barack Obama lost Iraq. "We had the conflict won," John McCain declared this week, "thanks to the surge." Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard and the Project for a New American Century […]

"Knowing what we know now." With those five words, virtually the entire 2016 Republican presidential field erased over 12 years of GOP talking points steadfastly supporting President Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq. But that phrase is much less important in what it says about the past (after all, as many have noted, we had plenty […]

Knowing what he knows now about the reaction to his statement that knowing what he knows now he would still have gone into Iraq, Jeb Bush on Friday comically reversed course on his brother's 2003 invasion of Iraq. Even more side-splitting have been the responses of Jeb's rivals for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Casually […]

With the President's nominee for Attorney General languishing in the Senate, John Cornyn (R-TX) issued this statement: "Throughout her career, Loretta Lynch has proven to be an independent voice for justice and a strong advocate for the United States Constitution. Her experience and qualifications as a lawyer, prosecutor and dedicated advocate for the rule of […]

Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin created quite the uproar when he condemned Senate Republicans for sending Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch to "the back of the bus." But Durbin didn't need to reach all the way back to Rosa Parks in 1955 to denounce the GOP's grotesque obstructionism. The story of Judge Michael Mukasey in […]

The Associated Press on Friday reported on the latest developments in the "increasingly nasty grudge match" between Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama over the Israeli Prime Minister's March 3 speech to Congress designed to sabotage American negotiations with Iran. But the real issue with the GOP's invitation to the Likud leader isn't about a clash […]

On Monday, Republican opposition to Obamacare went from the ridiculous to the sublimely ridiculous. After the right-wing Weekly Standard protested the Department of Health and Human Services' outreach activities to churches, Fox News host Steve Doocy complained that the HHS enrollment flyers, bulletins and enrollment events constituted a "violation of the separation of church and […]

Even as Islamic State fighters battle Iraqi forces in western Iraq near a base where hundreds of American troops are currently stationed, the government in Baghdad is facing a new crisis. On Friday, Sunni tribal leader Sheik Qasim al-Janabi, his son and six bodyguards were killed by unidentified Shiite militiamen in Baghdad. In the aftermath […]