June 24, 2008
George W. Bush, Multiculturalist
In the words of Dave Barry: I am pretty sure that I am not making this up. Welcoming the President of the Philippines to the Oval Office today, the Dear Leader said, "I am reminded of the great talent of the -- of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House." I am constantly surprised at how constantly...
June 15, 2008
The game of Presidents
Obama, Bush and Nixon as poker players.
May 31, 2008
Snitching
Predictably, the oxen gored by McClellan's book, apparently having nothing to wield by way of refutation, have hauled out Big Smircha and fired rounds of character slime, mostly (i) if he thought it was wrong, why didn't he speak up at the time? and the less closely reasoned (ii) ya lousy dirty cheaty rat basset snitch! Tim Rutten reflects on...
April 26, 2008
Bandar Bush, once more: the BAE scandal
Guess who was on the receiving end of the bribes BAE was paying?
February 27, 2008
Turn out the lights
Bush's approval rating of 19% is the lowest ever recorded.
February 08, 2008
Resolution of censure
Either House could pass one, or they could pass a concurrent resolution, expressing the sense of the Congress that various Bush power grabs are unconstitutional and constitute impeachable offenses and censuring George W. Bush by name for violating his oath of office.
January 31, 2008
Blood on the Coal
The Bush SOTU curse sets back clean-coal research.
January 30, 2008
Hannah Arendt on George W. Bush
For those of you who actually want to learn something about totalitarianism, instead of reading juvenile political propaganda from the recipients of nepotism, there is good news: Hannah Arendt's classic The Origins of Totalitarianism is now available unabridged on audiobook. Some recent listening allows me both to answer Mark's last post and re-consider Bush's confident assertion that his policies in...
George W. Cataline
George Bush claims the authority to spend appropriated funds to ends for which they were explicitly not appropriated. Where is the outrage?
January 22, 2008
About those White House emails ...
... yes, they're missing. And on a very interesting pattern of days.
January 02, 2008
The DOJ-CIA Videotape Investigation: Morose Thought of the Day
I suppose that it's a good thing that Michael Mukasey has ordered a criminal probe into the CIA destruction (with White House approval) of the torture videotapes. And I suppose that it's also a good thing he has appointed someone who seems to be a career, professional, and very hard-headed prosecutor to the job. But I can't say that I...
December 29, 2007
Wrecking the army (cont'd)
In response to my moan about the wreckage that's been made of the military over the past four years, (based largely on Andrew Tilghman's reporting), a hawkish reader, formerly, following his family tradition, an Army E-6, writes: The sorry part is how soon into the war this was a 100% straight-line mentat- predictable computation. When I watched the Baghdad Museum...
December 03, 2007
Fool me once ...
Volokh Conspirator (and GWU law prof) Orin Kerr on Chief Justice Robert's partisanship: ... the recent frustration apparent among the four liberal Justices is partly the result of Roberts being much more party-line than many expected. Roberts cultivated an image as the principled minimalist, but last Term he consistently voted in a conservative direction. If a coin flip always comes...
Fool me once ...
Volokh Conspirator (and GWU law prof) Orin Kerr on Chief Justice Robert's partisanship: ... the recent frustration apparent among the four liberal Justices is partly the result of Roberts being much more party-line than many expected. Roberts cultivated an image as the principled minimalist, but last Term he consistently voted in a conservative direction. If a coin flip always comes...
November 21, 2007
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
GWB things that a president can fire the supreme court without "crossing any lines." Yes, in this case the president is named Musharraf rather than Bush, but what's the difference? If a constitution is just a scrap of paper, then the Constitution is just a scrap of paper. No?
November 14, 2007
The Bridge Chicks
If you exercise your right to free speech, you're unfit to represent the United States in international competition. Why is that so hard to understand?
November 03, 2007
The Decider
Is there some part of "inherent wartime powers of the Commander-in-Chief" Secretary Rice doesn't fully understand?
October 13, 2007
Wish-I'd-said-that Dep't
Jonathan Rauch:
Some optimists say that in Army Gen. David Petraeus, Bush has finally found his Gen. Grant. That may or may not be true, but it is beside the point. The problem is that Petraeus has not yet found his President Lincoln.
October 10, 2007
Setting a low standard
Is there a candidate on the Republican side who would make such a bad President that GWB would look good by contrast? It's a tough order, but the Bushoids have found someone who could fill it.
September 23, 2007
Black swan Dep't
Hurrah! George Bush said something that *wasn't* stupid. For once.
September 21, 2007
Bush and Mandela
Hell freezes over and George W. Bush actually makes a legitimate point (at least theoretically) that is unfairly criticized in Blue Blogistan. The Beloved Leader has gotten some criticism for alleged remarking that Nelson Mandela is dead. He didn't say that, and I think that those who criticize him for it are both wrong substantively and also not grasping what...
September 08, 2007
Let them eat cake
Bush's mortgage "help"
September 03, 2007
The decider
What part of "inherent wartime powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief" doesn't Secretary Rice understand?
September 01, 2007
Still greedy after all these years
Sure, he's already got more than $10 million stacked up, but when he leaves the White House he's going to make speeches for money. Feh.
August 24, 2007
Leaving Saigon again
Leaving Baghdad would not be leaving Saigon.
August 20, 2007
Another shrill, partisan Bush-hater
Sam Brownback: "We’ve got to walk more humbly and a lot more wisely than the current president."
August 18, 2007
Padilla loves Big Brother
Padilla is a victim of Stalinist brainwashing.
August 07, 2007
Would it be shrill and uncivil to call the driver "Moron One"?
George Bush's golf cart carries the label "Golf Cart One." No, seriously.
August 06, 2007
July 22, 2007
Plan B
Don't impeach Bush or Cheney. There are much nastier things to do.
July 20, 2007
Gaming out the confrontation
The arrest power is an appetizer. The power of the purse is the main course.
Kaiser George
Mark accurately states that the Bush "philosophy" of executive power is more than Nixonian, and he is correct. So what actually to call it? It hardly resonates politically, but at times it might be best to think of it as "Wilhelmine." Godwin's Law commands that we not analogize our political opponents to the Third Reich and I think that that...
July 19, 2007
"Almost Nixonian"?
No. More than Nixonian. Bush orders the Justice Department not to enforce Congressional contempt citations arising out of "Executive Privilege" cases.
July 18, 2007
Made to be broken
Truman and Nixon share the record for lowest Presidential popularity, in the low 20s. Bush is around 28, but there's greatness in the man: he may yet set the all-time low. His latest ploy: theatening to veto the extension of medical insurance to millions of children from working-poor families.
July 15, 2007
Shorter George W. Bush
Bush admits - now - that he knew things were FUBAR in Iraq last fall.
July 14, 2007
The right place to fight
Executive privilege claims in the Pat Tillman case? Is the White House claiming that the President needs to keep confidential the process by which he decided to mislead the public? This is the case to take to court.
July 13, 2007
Cured!
Peggy Noonan says that no one now believes that loathing the President is a sign of "Bush Deranagment Syndrome. Now THAT's a relief.
July 06, 2007
Is Bush a conservative?
Properly speaking, he isn't. But neither are most of the other politicians who call themselves "conservative." Let's not help them use him as their scapegoat.
July 02, 2007
The Libby Commutation: Let's have some hearings!
Bring Libby in, immunize him, and ask him under oath what he had on Cheney and Bush.
June 30, 2007
How to save the Imperial Vice-President
For the first time, I have proposed a contract for TradeSports (now Intrade): Will Bush pardon Cheney before leaving office in January 2009? It's hardly far-fetched; recall that Ford pardoned Nixon before any prosecution was brought. Indeed, this is the conservative approach. The more aggressive contract would be: Will Bush pardon Cheney in January 2009, then resign and be pardoned...
June 25, 2007
Stalinism in the White House
Finishing up John Lewis Gaddis' The Cold War: A New History, a passage on the Marshall Plan resonated with me, in chilling fashion. Gaddis observes (pp. 103-104) that the exhausted Soviet Union could never have competed with the Americans in resuscitating European economies after the Second World War: The Americans had another advantage, however, that had nothing to do with...
June 15, 2007
Well, yes
... of course the White House has contempt for the Republican base. Who knows better how easily manipulated that base is by appeals to fear and hatred? Their problem today is that fear and hatred are working against Bush, Rove & Co.
June 13, 2007
When thieves fall out ...
Ann Coulter lands on GWB with both feet. She's mostly lying, of course, but it's still fun to watch, in a sick sort of way.
May 29, 2007
Hubris
The Bush Administration continues to act internationally as if we had the sort of bargaining position we would have if we didn't have our army tied down trying desperately not to lose the war in Iraq until after Mr. Bush leaves office. We don't.
May 28, 2007
A Memorial Day Message
Looking at the photograph that Mike just posted, I have to recall the appropriate epitaph for the management of the war, set forth by my friend Gideon Rose in a Washington Post article. Writing in 2005, the always-cautious Rose said that it was too early to judge whether anything could be salvaged from the war, but it is not too...
May 23, 2007
Slow learners at 1600 Penn.
The Mayberry Machiavellis can't get it through their thick skulls that times have changed, and there's stuff they just can't get away with anymore.
May 07, 2007
May 06, 2007
Worse than that
What looks like a fairly linear decline in Bush's approval ratings is actually much worse than it appears. When he went down 12 points from 80 to 68, it meant that about 15% of his supporters left the building. But the last twelve points, from 40 to 28, represents not only almost a one-third loss of his support, but loss...
Beautiful, isn't it?
Not only the Worst. President. Ever., but heading toward being The. Least. Popular. as well.
May 03, 2007
"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear"
Harvey Mansfield, in good Straussian style, unmasks the Bushite project of tyranny under cover of ironic praise.
April 17, 2007
Fill-in-the-blanks quiz
Quick! Who said this?
"Mr. Gonzales has presided over an unprecedented crippling of the Constitution's time-honored checks and balances."
"He has brought the rule of law into disrepute, and debased honesty as the coin of the realm."
April 13, 2007
President Pants-on-Fire
Apparently GWB planned to delay the announcement of the extension of tours of duty in Iraq until he could blame it on the Congressional Democrats.
April 11, 2007
Progress
It used to be that my habit of reading Dan Drezner, John Cole, and Andrew Sullivan meant that I'd encounter opinions about George W. Bush more favorable than my own. Now you have to go deep into the wingnut fever swamps before you encounter anything but persistent Bush-bashing....
Breaking the army
54% of the West Point class of 2000 has left active duty.
April 04, 2007
March 21, 2007
Fair is fair
The "worst president ever?" meme has floated from bitter-liberal whining lounges to mainstream venues and plutocrats like Donald Trump, who should know which side their bread is buttered on. This piling-on in the face of the clear facts has to stop if Democrats want to keep a shred of intellectual respectability. History simply will not support this level of condemnation....
March 20, 2007
Defiance
Those White House emails must include a smoking gun. Otherwise Bush's defiance of the Congress, without a legal leg to stand on, is incomprehensible. But this is a confrontation he cannot win.
March 09, 2007
Jeffreys Derangement Syndrome
Macaulay on Judge Jeffreys: The hatred which that bad man inspired had more affinity with humanity than with cruelty.
March 02, 2007
Remind you of anyone?
James the Second and George the Forty-third: separated at birth?
February 19, 2007
Query for the civility police
Is there no limit to the vulgarity of the Beloved Leader?
<!--
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns:trackback="http://madskills.com/public/xml/rss/module/trackback/"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
<rdf:Description
rdf:about="http://WWW.same