Upside down

Who can point to the exact moment when the conservative movement took hold in the US? Forty-five years ago when Barry Goldwater published his manifesto Conscience of a Conservative is as good a marker as any to my mind. In that book Goldwater called for dismantling most of the activities of the federal [...]

Let the framing begin

If there was any question what the conservative campaign theme this year would be, there isn’t now.
“Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.” But Republicans have the answer:
Cue soothing music, soft-focus on a young-family’s picnic in field; deep voiced narrator intones “Only one man can keep us safe in times like these” while the camera [...]

VP

There’s a ton of speculation about running mates for Obama and McCain these days, but realistically, isn’t the entire concept of a new VP a bit presumptuous? What reason do we have to believe that Cheney will leave office January 20, 2009? I understand it’s required by the Constitution, but Cheney [...]

Biden fights back

I see Joe Biden is out there fighting back against Joe Lieberman’s inane WSJ op-ed that he published last week. Biden published his own piece in the same venue. Among the highlights:

Mr. Bush has turned a small number of radical groups that hate America into a 10-foot tall existential monster that dictates every [...]

Green Lantern: the foreign policy

Conservatives in general, and George Bush in particular, seem to be convinced that there are no limits to what American military power can accomplish so long as we have the willpower to use it, and the fortitude to stay with it!!
What is the origin of that belief?
I’m reading Matthew Yglesias’ new book “Heads in [...]

As Long as the Danger Remains

According to the NY Times President Bush vetoed a bill Saturday that “would have explicitly prohibited the [the CIA] from using interrogation methods like waterboarding…” They go on to observe that,
“as his presidency winds down he has made it clear he does not intend to bend in this or other confrontations on issues from [...]

The GOP delivers

If I were the chair of the Democratic Party there would be one rule, one goal: when people vote on 11/10/08–there should be one idea so deeply embedded in the public pysche that it has become an unquestioned truth: voting GOP means voting Bush.
This isn’t just a gratuitous attempt to tie the GOP [...]

Legacy of the GOP, con’t

The other day I noted that the legacy of the GOP will likely be a “sputtering if not stalled economy, a federal government carrying $5 trillion more in debt, an over-committed military, and a more dangerous world.”
I forgot to mention one other legacy of Bush and the GOP, waterboarding.
In a column for Slate, Dahlia Lithwick [...]

Rule of law revisited

When the NY Times reported a few weeks ago that the CIA had destroyed tapes of its operatives using “severe interrogation techniques” even conservative bloggers thought the destruction “looked a lot more like destroying evidence than tightening security.” As James Joyner puts it:
“Both the 9/11 Commission and attorneys for Zacarias Moussaoui had specifically [...]

Search and Seizure

From the NY Times:
San Diego County’s district attorney has a program called Project 100% that is intended to reduce welfare fraud. Applicants for welfare benefits are visited by law enforcement agents, who show up unannounced and examine the family’s home, including the insides of cabinets and closets. Applicants who refuse to let the agents in [...]