Crooks and Liars has a video up of Laura Bush saying downright stupid things. I quote: “Many parts of Iraq are stable… But, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everybody.” Obviously she’s right about “most parts of Iraq” being stable, but the second part is, umh, slightly less accurate. I’m sorry, but I cannot be ‘moderate’...

Two contrasting view points this week from the GOP From Governor Schwarzenegger Schwarzenegger stresses the importance of centrism in American politics, decries excessive partisanship and said the current system of political gerrymandering in which the vast majority of seats in the House of Representatives are heavily weighted in favor of one party or the other “creates extremism.� He favors redistricting...

Every election needs its maverick. Some random speculation at Central Sanity …

The Times of London reports that several U.S. generals and admirals are threatening to resign if George Bush gives the order to attack Iran. “There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,� a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether...

A Rasmussen poll shows two things: (1) Republican former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is undergoing his own “surge” …upwards, at the expense of Arizona Senator John McCain…and he could beat Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical matchup. (2) Senator Hillary Clinton does not seem to be winning over many new voters. Are their minds totally made up on her? If so, some conventional talking-head...

What do you get when you throw Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a moderate Democrat from northern California, into a pit with a few ultra-liberal activists, online and off? The answer, apparently, is political road kill. As recounted in the WaPo earlier this week, that situation is neither a work of fiction nor a twisted childhood riddle. It’s very real and remarkably sad, and it’s precisely why I have such...

Tony Blair has declared himself at odds with hawks in the US Administration by saying publicly for the first time that it would be wrong to take military action against Iran. The Prime Minister’s comments came hours before the UN’s nuclear watchdog raised the stakes in the West’s showdown with Tehran, says The Times. “…Mr Blair, in a BBC interview yesterday, said: ‘I...

A Los Angeles Times editorial brings up this point on an underlying, usually unspoken issue raised by Hollywood bigwig and Barack Obama supporter David Geffen in his controversial comments about Hillary Clinton: Geffen was on to something with his passing mention of the fact that Obama is not from “the Bush royal family” or the “Clinton royal family.” Regardless of what you think of Bill...

Newsweek notes that the most significant political story coming out of California last week wasn’t the spat between Barack Obama supporter David Geffen, the Hillary Clinton camp and then the Obama camp — but one that didn’t get much publicity. It was the symbolism of Arizon Senator John McCain coming to California — and California’s likely new role in Presidential primaries…....

Medical marijuana advocates have filed suit against two federal health agencies who assert that smoking the Evil Weed has no medical benefit. The nonprofit group, Americans for Safe Access, challenges the government’s position that marijuana “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.� In its lawsuit, the group contends that the Department of Health and Human Services...

Last April, I covered the Italian elections here, here, and here. I was happy that challenger Romano Prodi of the center-left beat incumbent Silvio Berlusconi of the center-right. Berlusconi is, after all, a crook. But the election was close, and, as the BBC is reporting, Prodi has resigned after “after losing a crucial foreign policy vote in the Senate”. The issue? America’s war on terror:...

Senator Hillary Clinton’s camp can’t be too happy over New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd’s latest column, which has some peppery words about her candidacy and her husband from Hollywood bigwig David Geffen. The news peg is a big, A-list fundraiser in Hollywood — for Barack Obama. There was a time when columnists basically said that then-President Bill Clinton was Hollywood’s...

A 90-minute, unrestricted, unrehearsed dialogue about the major challenges confronting America by two of the most articulate promoters of their ideologies. For more Info

Based on the approving comments we received yesterday regarding our draft of five policy questions — and an overwhelming lack of disagreement about those questions — we have now moved on to the second step; namely, posing these questions to the presidential candidates. A friend and former colleague who worked on Senator Kerry’s campaign in 2004 and served previously in the Clinton Administration...

Filmmaker Marshall Curry’s Academy Award-nominated documentary, Street Fight is a story about how a nice guy in politics finishes last. Or did he? Street Fight is now out on DVD with a short update added at the end of the film — and, oh, what a difference the short update at the end means…. The documentary centers on the 2002 mayoral race in Newark, New Jersey pitting 32-year-old starry-eyed...

In life and in war, turnabout is fair play, and that may be nowhere more true than in politics. And so we have the sorry sight of John Kerry flip-flopping on yet another issue and sucking up to yet another right-wing constituency . . . Wait a minute! Kerry has quit politics. It’s John McCain, that “maverick” Republican presidential candidate, who has become a champion flip-flopper on a dizzying...

Last week, inspired by a reader’s comment, we suggested a three-step exercise to help us learn more about how the various presidential candidates, if elected, would actually govern. Step #1 was to compile a list of five questions to pose to each of those candidates. From a pool of nearly 50 suggested questions we received from TMV readers and contributors, we applied a bit of democracy to the process...

It sounds as if John McCain is making a calculated risk that he’s willing to lose some voters who supported him because he was an unpredicatable independent-thinking Republican and replace them with GOP primary voters and social conservatives who want more predictable positions: Republican presidential candidate John McCain, looking to improve his standing with the party’s conservative voters,...

A new poll shows former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani expanding his lead over Arizona Senator John McCain among Republican primary voters for the 2008 GOP nomination. Both are out on the hustings. Both are getting more and more “face time” on cable news networks in terms of coverage and “live” interviews. Both are trying to shore up pockets of resistance among the GOP electorate. Interesting,...

The Los Angeles Times reports that GOP conservatives’ political knives are out — bigtime — for New York Senator Hillary Clinton. And one of the political knives is reportedly held by former Clinton advisor Dick Morris, now a columnist and Fox News contributor: Old enemies of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton are out in force. Just weeks after she joined the Democratic Party’s flock of presidential...

Some folks get angry when they see posts by independent voters who are highly critical of the Bush administration and the GOP. Here’s yet another indication that it is part of a major trend that isn’t good news for the GOP. TMV thanks Americablog for the tip.

Times Online’s Daniel Finklestine writes: I like Senator John McCain, really I do. I think he is often brave and often right. I like his style. But, well, Rudy is Rudy. Here are the ten reasons why it has to be the Mayor not the Senator: CLICK HERE to read them.

Senator Obama is the first presidential candidate to co-sponsor S. 436, essential legislation introduced by Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) to fix the presidential public financing system for future presidential elections. Senator Obama has provided important national leadership by becoming the first presidential candidate to sponsor vitally-needed reform legislation to protect the integrity of the presidency...

When author Toni Morrison called Bill Clinton “America’s first black president,� she wasn’t kidding. I have seen Clinton campaign before black audiences, and he was electrifying. His roots in the black community run so deep that I am convinced that had Al Gore allowed him to campaign at his side in 2000, Gore and not George Bush would be president. Dick Polman, the most excellent national...