The water had barely started to rise in the streets of New Orleans when people started looking for someone to blame. Fingers were pointed in every direction — any direction but their own, or that of their interest group. The fault lay with: the Army Corps of Engineers, the Bush administration, Governor Blanco, Mayor Nagin, the Louisiana political culture, the local levee … [Read more...] about Perfecting the Blame Game in Iraq

I Sought a Favor from Sherrod Brown … [Read more...] about A Blogger Admits It

Congress will consider authorizing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. As discussed in this article. In response, the drug industry argues that reducing their profits will reduce the number of new drugs they can develop. I wonder if compromises like these have been considered?: Can we continue to allow the market to determine most medicare drug prices, but also … [Read more...] about Drug Compromise

Bush in Latvia, from the Times and the Post: "We'll continue to be flexible and we will make the changes necessary to succeed. But there's one thing I'm not going to do: I'm not going pull the troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete." Meaning what exactly? Nothing. It's just tough talk. He's open to changing course, but, well, not really. Although I'm sure … [Read more...] about The delusion of a president

The Hotline is reporting that outgoing Majority Leader Bill Frist has decided not to seek the Republican nomination for President in 2008. You can call this a non-starter for a non-starter. The reason: political scientists and historians will write that Frist was the worst, least effective Senate Majority leader at least 100 years — from either party. A Majority Leader … [Read more...] about Bill Frist Won’t Run For President After all

What a surprise. It seems that the Sudan wasn't serious about agreeing in principle to a joint international (U.N./A.U.) peacekeeping force for Darfur. As I wrote at The Carpetbagger Report a couple of weeks ago, there was "some promising news coming out of Khartoum," but, of course, I was highly skeptical. And now the BBC is reporting this:Sudan's president has rejected plans … [Read more...] about The lies of Khartoum

Democrats are giddy with excitement about a burst of legislative progress in the opening of the next Congress in January. But I am concerned that they may overreach and alienate potential allies. I am concerned that pride of ownership may scuttle many reasonable hopes and dreams. Many of the organizations have staff that need to justify their jobs. They need to show progress. … [Read more...] about Overreaching in the first 100 hours

By any objective measure, the so-called War on Drugs has been a failure. The term was first used by President Nixon in 1971, but the war itself didn't get underway in earnest until the Reagan administration with agreements with drug-supplying countries to curb the import of marijuana, cocaine and heroin into the U.S. A quarter of a century later, the War on Drugs has failed … [Read more...] about The Enduring Hypocrisy of The War on Drugs

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is causing a controversy now by raising an issue whispered a bit over the past few years: whether some free speech will have to be suppressed to battling terrorism:"We need to get ahead of the curve rather than wait until we actually literally lose a city, which I think could literally happen in the next decade if we're unfortunate," Mr. … [Read more...] about Gingrich: Free Speech Might Have To Be Curtailed To Fight Terrorism

It seems that the first conversation between Webb and Bush didn't exactly go [over] smoothly: At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing. Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about … [Read more...] about A Suggested Conversation

Some people don't seem to grasp the meaning of 'separation of Church and State'. To Prager: Muslim Americans, presumably, support the US Constitution not the Bible. For if they would consider the Bible to be the authority on all matters... they would not be Muslims, would they? … [Read more...] about I Swear

Pakistan is urging NATO to surrender to the Taliban:Pakistan's foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri, has said in private briefings to foreign ministers of some Nato member states that the Taliban are winning the war in Afghanistan and Nato is bound to fail. He has advised against sending more troops. Western ministers have been stunned. "Kasuri is basically asking Nato to … [Read more...] about Pakistan to NATO: Surrender

Good news for every member of the VVD: Rita "overly ambitious" Verdonk had to give in late yesterday night. The internal debate was, reportedly, a hard and aggressive one and resulted in one clear thing: there will not be a special committee. Now we've dealt with that I hope we can all agree that Verdonk has to go. She is an embarrassment to this great party of ours. … [Read more...] about Verdonk Lost

The Oxford English Dictionary definies ad hominem as: "A phrase applied to an argument or appeal founded on the preferences or principles of a particular person rather than on abstract truth or logical cogency." When I see the words ad hominem attack coming at me, I run for my raincoat because it's probable that I'm about to get wet. That is because accusing someone of … [Read more...] about The Most Overused Phrase in the Blogosphere

Her new showstopper "Everything's Run By Pelosi". (Via the parody group The Capital Steps, that is. They have some GREAT CDs.) … [Read more...] about Nancy Pelosi SINGS!

So far I have avoided watching Michael Richard's racial rant because I like watching Seinfeld and didn't want to contaminate my innocent joy. I find the situation ironic because the Kramer character was the symbol of open mindedness, with friends who were small, Cuban, oriental, fat, rich, and poor. Likewise is my reaction to Mel Gibson's meltdown. But the public recurrence of … [Read more...] about Hi, My Name is Paul and I am a Racist

Most Americans were quick to condemn Michael Richards' remarks as racism. That's good. But that's only the first step. … [Read more...] about Stage One

I did not support the elevation of Alcee Hastings to Intelligence Committee Chair, but any Congressman who ends a press release with "Sorry, haters, God is not finished with me yet" scores some serious points with me. … [Read more...] about Don’t Hate The Playa; Hate The Game

What does it mean? It means this. … [Read more...] about There’s A New Phrase: “Flying While Muslim”

Mark Rutte and Rita "Iron Lady" Verdonk Well, this is freaking great: as you all know my political party the VVD (conservatives) lost 6 seats during the elections last week. Earlier this year we had an election within the party about who would lead it. In those 'internal' elections, only members can vote. It is very easy and virtually free to become a member and thus influence … [Read more...] about Ambitious and Shameless Verdonk