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Fact: Halliburton has overcharged taxpayers for food, accepted kickbacks for oil subcontracts, and spent taxpayer money renting rooms at five-star resorts in Kuwait. But instead of expressing outrage the government’s top watchdog, Pentagon Inspector General Joseph Schmitz, last week parroted the company line, saying he believes Halliburton’s problems “are not out of line with the […]

A lot of Democrats breathed a big sigh of relief yesterday when John Kerry named John Edwards as his running mate. At the most obvious level, Edwards brings two things that Kerry has sometimes lacked. He brings personal excitement plus a capacity to connect with non-rich voters on pocketbook issues. If Kerry sometimes seems patrician […]

Attorney General John Ashcroft received numerous detailed briefings last year regarding the criminal investigation of the unauthorized disclosure of a CIA agent’s identity, during which he was told specific information relating to the potential culpability of several close political associates in the Bush administration, according to senior federal law-enforcement sources. Among other things, the sources […]

Marketplace, July 7, 2004 The Conference Board reports that in June, consumer confidence in the economy reached its highest level in two years. This is an important indicator. When confidence is up, consumers are likely to spend more money, which gives the economy a further boost. But here’s a little-noticed fact: How confident you are […]

Conservative Republicans continue to show that it’s their way or the highway when it comes to Washington. Illinois Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald told The Chicago Tribune recently that Republicans “sabotage[d]” the campaign of Senate candidate Jack Ryan, who had to pull out of the race after embarrassing disclosures from his divorce records. “Why fight a […]

The most remarkable thing about John Kerry’s selection of John Edwards as his running mate is that Kerry was actually responding to the wishes of his party. Across the nation over the past several months, there was a groundswell of support among Democrats for adding Edwards to the ticket — a groundswell unprompted by any […]

Over the weekend, The New York Times reported that “The first draft of the Democratic platform that will be presented to the party’s convention late this month … declares that Mr. Bush’s ‘doctrine of unilateral pre-emption has driven away our allies.’” It’s the sort of talking point I hear so often in anti-Bush circles that […]

As the Bush-Cheney campaign looks to define John Kerry’s partnership with John Edwards as yet another flip flop, it hopes that a historical echo will go unheard. “When John Kerry’s first choice for a running mate turned him down, he turned to the polls,” today’s Bush-Cheney press release reads. “John Kerry’s selection of John Edwards […]

On the demo tape that won him a record deal back in 1991, Bottle Rockets’ leader Brian Henneman sang a song about Neil Young. Fittingly, Henneman’s portrait (co-written with longtime collaborator Scott Taylor) was more of a woodcut than a watercolor. “Neil once voted Republican,” sings Henneman in one verse. “And that pissed off a […]

Almost before John Kerry had sealed up the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, he was being advised to name his vice president — now. Every Democrat in Washington seemed to think that an accelerated selection process was essential to Kerry’s success; even Nancy Pelosi said that it was “important to have a nominee by May 1.” […]