The latest poll from Rasmussen (which no one has ever accused of being a wing of the Democratic Party) indicates President George W. Bush now ranks as one of American history’s most unpopular Presidents — within just one point of tying most-unpopular President and fellow Republican Richard Nixon. Here’s that part of the poll: The highest unfavorable rating for any President is earned by Richard Nixon. Sixty percent (60%) of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the only President...

NPR presents a special holiday broadcast, Politics Takes a Holiday with the Capitol Steps in the 9-10 am and 7-8 pm timeslot. I’m listening to it right now on my computer from WMUB from Miami University in Oxford Ohio. Listen in!

For a bunch of white guys with bad hair the Founding Fathers were really onto something. Please take a few minutes to read the entire (original) text of the Declaration of Independence. Then think about where American has been in the last 231 years and, most importantly, where it is today. I don’t know about you, but reading this extraordinary document invites comparisons between a George to which the Founding Fathers repeatedly refer and a present-day George.

The scene: a news feature on the iPhone. The event: an unexpected attempted theft. PS: The news segment is a goo one.

In the world of 21st century America where long-held principles are long held until for political reasons they need to be thrown away ASAP, this should not come as much of a surprise: According to the New York Times, President George Bush’s arguments in favor of commuting Scooter Libby’s prison sentence contradict the arguments of his own Justice Department. And lawyers across the country are rubbing their hands with glee, since they will start using some of the same arguments to try...

Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune

I’ll believe it when I see him! BBC’s Johnston ‘released in Gaza’ The BBC’s Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston is freed from kidnappers after almost four months in captivity. UPDATE: Apparently he was briefly seen. Now that Hamas has freed Johnston from captivity by the Doghmush clan, let’s see Hamas free Johnston and send him over the border into Israel or Egypt. .

I’m not normally an optimist. And the Israeli/Palestinian conflict rarely gives me reason to be. But over the last few days, I’ve felt a wave of irrational exuberance as to the prospect of progress in the region.

If you’re one of those who were outraged by Bush’s commuting Scooter Libby’s sentence, be forewarned that it’s clear you will need to brace yourself for more outrage: The White House on Tuesday declined to rule out the possibility of an eventual pardon for former vice presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. But spokesman Tony Snow said, for now, President Bush is satisfied with his decision to commute Libby’s 2 1/2-year prison sentence. It’s pretty...

In a delicious turn of events, the family of O.J. Simpson murder victim Ron Goldman has purchased the rights to the Juice’s cancelled book, “If I Did It,” from a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee. The family has said it will rename the book “The Confessions of a Double Murderer” and shop it around. It also acquired the media and movie rights and Simpson’s name, likeness, life story and rights of publicity in connection with the book. Goldman was slain along...

Carter Malkasian wrote a good article for the Democracy Journal about Iraqization. The idea behind Iraqization is, basically, that “an effective Iraqi security force” is created, which “can take the place of U.S. Marines and soldiers. Thereby, the United States can eventually withdraw without leaving behind a terrorist safe haven and fractured Iraq.” The only problem with this plan according to Carter: it will not work. Between February 2004 and February 2005, and later from...

When Benjamin Franklin famously remarked that the law is an ass, a reference to the donkey, he could not have imagined a future law in his adopted Pennsylvania that forbids fireworks sales to state residents but allows out-of-staters to buy the explosives by the truckload. A horse’s ass of a law, perhaps? This incongruity comes into sharp focus every Independence Day as residents of New Jersey, which has an absolute ban on fireworks sales, transportation and use, stream into Pennsylvania to...

Is this bogus? If we took Mr Butt’s words to heart, would we be heartened by the words because they say something we’d love to hear? The voice of reason from a former big bad terrorist? Hmmm, Surely others have said these same things, things that sound like this: ‘Start discussing literal passages about dealing death’ re the Koran, within the Muslim community. Non-muslims, ‘stop giving passes to ‘the good Muslim’ as PC blindfolded philosophy; the issues are...

A round up of recent posts by a few centrist, moderate, and independent bloggers. Kevin Sullivan tackles “Terrorism and the Law Enforcement Fallacy.” This one is a must read, IMHO, a forceful and persuasive reminder, for all of us. The Angry Independent offers his thoughts on Michael Moore’s Sicko. While I (and two of his commenters) generally disagree with TAI’s conclusions, he does at least (like Moore) force us to wrestle with the central question: “Which functions...

Richard Cohen writes for the Washington Post: The eight Democratic presidential candidates assembled in Washington last week for another of their debates and talked, among other things, about public education. They all essentially agreed that it was underfunded — one system “for the wealthy, one for everybody else,” as John Edwards put it. Then they all got into cars and drove through a city where teachers are relatively well paid, per-pupil spending is through the roof and —...

There is a birdbath tucked in between a Japanese maple and a spruce tree at our house and this time of year it is a rare evening that there isn’t a procession of fat robins who take turns splashing in the water and then flying up to the branches of a nearby plum tree to preen and shake themselves dry. I was standing at the door last night taking in this sweet little sideshow, a moment of sublime normalcy in what has increasingly seemed like a world gone crazy, when the news broke that President...

Hasn’t it come time to say it? In the history of the American republic, it’s difficult to find a President who has proven to be as consistently polarizing and seemingly dismissive of the feelings of Americans who do not belong to his party — or, specifically, to his own party’s “base” — as President George W. Bush. Bush’s “surprise” – or was it? — decision to commute the sentence of former White House and Vice President Dick...

Barack Obama won the fund-raising contest for the past quarter, but Hillary Clinton “won” the Democratic debate Thursday night and holds a big lead in the polls. In the coming months, we may be seeing a contest of “new politics” that isn’t quite what analysts have been predicting. Their demographic newness is obvious–first woman President, first of color–but Clinton and Obama bring deeper divides than their half-a-generation age difference to the Party and...

(Cross-posted at Foreign Policy Watch.) Or that’s at least what some military officials are now saying. Dave Kilcullen, Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor to General Petraeus, had this to say recently: I know some people in the media are already starting to sort of write off the “surge” and say ‘Hey, hang on: we’ve been going since January, we haven’t seen a massive turnaround; it mustn’t be working’. What we’ve been doing to date is putting...

Why do I even bother blogging about Joe Lieberman? Honestly, there’s no good answer to that question. Perhaps the sheer extremism of his foolishness and inanity attracts my attention. And here’s the latest, via Think Progress: Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) used the foiled terror attempts in London to call for greater domestic spying here in the United States. Lieberman said, “I hope these terrorist attacks in London wake us up here in America to...

Over at The Reaction, new co-blogger Carol Gee has a post up on the irony of doctors as terrorists. Read it here.

A federal appeals court said today that Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, must go to prison while appealing his conviction for obstructing a CIA leak probe. The three-judge panel found that Libby “has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question” under federal law that would merit letting him remain free. Steve Benen writes at Political Animal: “For those who keep track of such things, Bloomberg reported, ‘The...