Joe Scott 3: The Body Politic

Cancer, Courage, Campaign

23 March 2007 |permalink | email article

Few news conferences have been as poignant as Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, announcing that her breast cancer has recurred and has severely worsened. No, it is not curable, but yes, it is treatable.

Despite… read full story

Understanding Al Gore

22 March 2007 |permalink | email article

The media buzz and among political junkies is whether Al Gore, who won the popular vote in 2000 only to lose the presidency when Florida’s electoral votes went to George W. Bush, will run again.

Gore again repeated in… read full story

Who’s Playing Politics?

21 March 2007 |permalink | email article

President Bush is angry. Congress has rejected the White House offer to let senior administration officials, including Karl Rove, testify informally in private interviews but not under oath. His response has a Nixonian ring.

He says nobody did… read full story

New Rule: Earlier Primaries Matter

20 March 2007 |permalink | email article

One commandment has been sacrosanct in American presidential politics - the Iowa caucuses shall come first and shall be followed eight days later by the New Hampshire primary.

That will not change in 2008. But the kingmaker status of… read full story

C42 vs. Obama

19 March 2007 |permalink | email article

Barack Obama, in an impassioned speech Saturday evening before a huge cheering crowd with Oakland’s City Hall as a backdrop, called for an end to the Iraq war on its fourth anniversary.

His theme: “We can’t continue this occupation”… read full story

A Question of Propriety

18 March 2007 |permalink | email article

Embattled Alberto Gonzales, facing mounting pressures to resign, may now have a more serious worry.

Predictably, a Newsweek poll of 1,001 adults, interviewed on March 14 and March 16, found fewer than 32% of those surveyed want the attorney… read full story

On the Record

17 March 2007 |permalink | email article

“When the president says, ‘Jump,’ he says, ‘How high?’” – Bruce Fein, former associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan, calling Alberto Gonzales “an echo chamber of the White House.” – Wall Street Journal 

“The problem is when… read full story

Paging Rove

16 March 2007 |permalink | email article

An intriguing question was posed today to Josh Marshall by a reader at talkingpointsmemo.com.

It was whether anyone knows what Scooter Libby prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s “rating” was on the loyalty scale sent to White House Counsel Harriet Miers… read full story

Alberto Won’t Survive

15 March 2007 |permalink | email article

My last post raised the question about whether Alberto Gonzales could survive the politically motivated firing of eight U.S. attorneys. The new question is when the inept attorney general will be forced to resign.

My prediction is that Gonzales,… read full story

Gonzales: Abuse of Power?

14 March 2007 |permalink | email article

How long can Alberto Gonzales, under intense criticism for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys in the “Pearl Harbor Day Massacre,” survive as Attorney General? 

Gonzales recently told The Wall Street Journal that “we could have rolled out… read full story

Bad First Impression

13 March 2007 |permalink | email article

The expectation at Chuck Hagel’s much-anticipated news conference yesterday in Omaha led the political world to believe that he would announce a decision about whether he would run for president.

Instead, it was a big tease, a non-news… read full story

New GOP Hopefuls

12 March 2007 |permalink | email article

Without a sitting president or vice president running in 2008, both major parties have an unusually large field of would-be candidates. The Republican race is interesting because it continues to expand.

With seven candidates already in the field, the… read full story

Faltering Freedom Mission

11 March 2007 |permalink | email article

A grand design put forth to Americans by George W. Bush in his second inaugural address was that the United States had a worldwide mission to spread freedom and democracy. Notice now how such talk has become more muted.

On the Record

10 March 2007 |permalink | email article

“Any student of history recognizes that there is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq. Military action is necessary to help improve security . . .but it is not sufficient.” – Gen. David H. Petraeus, the… read full story

Hagel Appears Ready

09 March 2007 |permalink | email article

Chuck Hagel, the conservative Nebraska Republican senator who is the most anti-war critic in his party (besides former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore), ends a six-week tease Monday about his political future.

Facing re-election in 2008, the expectation is the… read full story

Giuliani and Bratton

08 March 2007 |permalink | email article

Rudy Giuliani, the early frontrunner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, met this week with Sheriff Lee Baca and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare Los Angeles County’s gang crisis an urgent priority.

In the course of the crime summit,… read full story

Fall Guy

07 March 2007 |permalink | email article

“There is a cloud over the vice president,” the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, told the jury in summing up the case in the trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby last month.

The jury convicted Libby on four of five… read full story

Buck Stops at 1600

06 March 2007 |permalink | email article

The scandal levels reached by the Bush White House make corruption during the Warren Harding era in the 1920s seem trivial. 
Lying to Congress, mismanagement of the Iraq war as in lack of troop body armor and… read full story

Selma: Obama and Clinton

05 March 2007 |permalink | email article

Two rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, paid homage to the civil rights movement Sunday in Selma, Ala., just short of the 42nd anniversary of the uprising that became the turning point for American… read full story

Ann Coulter

04 March 2007 |permalink | email article

A Political Circus best describes the 34th annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington - full of angst about the movement’s future and the orthodoxy of auditioning would-be presidential nominees.

Shadowy Dick Cheney, fresh from rediscovering Al Qaeda… read full story

Homage to an Icon

02 March 2007 |permalink | email article

Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who died Wednesday at 89, was described in a NYT obit as the prize-winning historian of power. His 20 books shaped discussions for two generations about America’s past. Beginning with “The Age of Jackson,” he profoundly… read full story

Clinton, McCain Setbacks

01 March 2007 |permalink | email article

There’s more bad news for Hillary Clinton and John McCain. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll, released a day after a Zogby International survey, also found her losing ground to Barack Obama and him fading as Rudy Guiliani expands… read full story