In a perfect world, the judicial appointment process would not resemble an episode of World Wrestling Entertainment’s Smackdown!: Republicans and Democrats would share agreed-upon standards of competence and experience for appointees. The White House would consult widely with senators and nominate mostly consensus candidates to the federal bench. And there would be broad agreement about […]
Nicholas Confessore
Nicholas Confessore is a reporter for The New York Times. Previously he was an American Prospect senior correspondent and an editor of The Washington Monthly.
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Bad News
In George Orwell’s novel 1984, the authorities trace every act of sabotage, every heresy, every defeat, to a fellow named Emmanuel Goldstein. Little is known about the man except his face, his past and his alleged crimes, but his existence is extraordinarily convenient. If Goldstein didn’t exist, his opponents would have had to invent him. […]
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This Is Your Party on Drugs
About three years ago, pollster Celinda Lake sat down with then-Representative Debbie Stabenow — a Michigan Democrat preparing to run for the Senate — to put together a campaign proposal for prescription drugs. Stabenow had already made headlines busing senior citizens across the border to buy affordable prescription drugs in Canada; she wanted to make […]
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Swinging Seniors
On its face, the United Seniors Association (USA) decision two weeks ago to launch a major advertising blitz in support of the House Republicans’ prescription-drug proposal was not unusual. The pharmaceutical industry, which funds the USA, has a huge stake in how the prescription-drug debate plays out in Congress. Since the 1994 elections, the drug […]
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George Bush’s Texas Trouble:
When Karen Hughes announced her decision to leave the White House and return to Texas, the only thing Washington could agree on was that it was a loss for George W. Bush. It was Hughes who helped Bush find his voice during the 2000 elections, who signed off on speeches, who helped loosen him up. […]
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The Tyranny of Triangulation
John Kerry and Joe Lieberman have a lot in common. Both went to Yale. Both are senators from the Northeast. Both are prominent, well-liked members of the Democratic caucus. And both very much want to be president someday. But when top Republicans — notably Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott and House Minority Whip Tom Delay […]
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Control Freaks
It just seemed like a lot of kids were getting killed with guns,” mused Andrew McKelvey, recalling the days after the Columbine school shootings in 1999. “I said to myself, someone should do something about it.” So McKelvey — a multimillionaire business executive and political neophyte — did. In the three years after Columbine, McKelvey […]
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Beat the Press
It’s safe to say that Bob Woodward doesn’t have much trouble getting his calls to the White House returned. If Woodward’s latest opus for The Washington Post — an interminable eight-parter titled “10 Days in September” co-reported with Dan Balz — is any measure, the Bush administration practically gave Woodward a key to the Oval […]
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Loving Leon
Leon Kass, chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics, is finally getting some good press. In this week’s issue of the Weekly Standard, contributing editor Andrew Ferguson — a witty and normally skeptical writer — knocks the New York Times for obliquely identifying Kass with “religious conservatives.” He pens a breezy account of the commission’s […]
