In the wake of the GOP's triumph in last week's midterm election, conservative commentators are demanding President Obama and his Democratic allies abandon their agenda and submit to the will of the new Republican majority. "The chastened President," Peggy Noonan lectured, should "reach out, be humble," but instead is "doubling down on hostility, antagonism and […]

On Tuesday, Republicans may recapture control of the Senate. And to be sure, they've made no secret of their plans to derail the final two years of Barack Obama's presidency. Would-be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who in 2005 declared that "Any president's judicial nominees, after full and fair debate, receive a simple up-or-down […]

This spring, the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Week and The Grio (among others) pointed to the new crop of African-American GOP candidates and pondered, "2010: The year of the black Republican?" And on Sunday, RealClearPolitics contributor Jack Kelly touted the candidacies of Tim Scott, Allen West and Ryan Frazier as proof of […]

With each passing day, Sarah Palin resembles more and more "George Bush in lipstick." Two days ago, she like George W. Bush in 2000 was duped by Canadian pranksters posing as foreign leaders. And today, Palin like President Bush in 2006 essentially accused her Democratic opponents of being terrorist sympathizers. Palin's slander came during a […]

Just before November's midterm elections, a piece called "Divide, Suppress and Conquer" described the two-pronged Republican campaign strategy of mobilizing its conservative base while driving down the Democratic and independent vote. When it comes to vote suppression, a new study has found that the Republican tactics have been quite successful, indeed. In a report just […]

A chastened President Bush ventured into enemy territory on Saturday to address the annual gathering of House Democrats. Obliterated in the November elections and facing both abysmal poll numbers and open rebellion over Iraq within his own party, the formerly fierce Bush with tail between his legs feigned a spirit of bipartisan cooperation: "I welcome […]

As 2006 comes to a close, the Top 10 GOP Sound Bites chart has been turned upside down. In the wake of the Republicans' midterm election nightmare and the battering of the Iraq Study Group report, a bevy of GOP favorites have fallen off the list. Nowhere is the shake-up more evident than in the […]

With the midterms now in the rear view mirror, history will record that President Bush committed the defining gaffe of the 2006 campaign. Try as they might, conservatives failed to turn John Kerry's clumsy "stuck in Iraq" stumble into the moment that snatched Democratic defeat from the jaws of victory. As it turns out, it […]

With Wednesday's post-election sacking of Donald Rumsfeld, President Bush showed once again that he's more concerned about managing the news cycle than America's national security. Facing the prospect of explaining away his party's "thumping" at the hands of the Democrats, Bush instead hoped to change the topic. The "blue wave" that swept the Republicans from […]

As Tuesday's vote approaches, Democrats are buoyantly optimistic about their prospects for retaking control of Congress. President Bush is wildly unpopular. His handling of Iraq, the election's dominant issue, is backed by less than a third of the electorate. On issue after issue, voters across the United States support Democratic positions. And in generic Congressional […]