Today’s provocative lefty talking point—picked up by Kevin Drum and others and parroted in the comments here in order to suggest a disconnect between Presidential leadership and the “troops on the ground” (because remember:  the left loves the troops; it’s the commanders they can’t stand)—has to do with a BBC report (video here, direct link here) showing Lt. Commander Sean Kelly, a Pentagon spokesman for Northern Command, “accidentally” telling the

Regular readers of my site—particularly social conservatives—will recognize that I’m no Bush apologist, and have been critical of the President when I believe he’s taken missteps (lumber / steel protectionism; ideological dithering in the terror war, etc.) or backed bad law (Schiavo, McCain-Feingold, etc.); having said that, though, I’m going to take what I consider to be an intellectual stand here and state clearly and for the record that I

Earlier this week, the New York Times did itself little honor when it blasted the Bush Admnistration for not providing the very federal monies that it itself had raged against in an earlier editorial.  Well, it seems this kind of thing is becoming a pattern with the Paper of Record.  From the Weekly Standard “Scrapbook,” Sept 5/12, “The Best of Times, the Worst of Times”: Let it be recordeth that

This Saturday press briefing by Lt Gen H Steven Blum speaks to the questions some of the commenters here have asked about a “paperwork delay” bringing the military law enforcement presence into NO.  Read the whole thing, but for the purposes of this post I’ll excerpt a relevant portion of the Q & A: GEN BLUM:  […] Martial law has not been declared anywhere in the United States of America.

Several interesting points / arguments made in the comments to the previous post outlining Blanco’s series of indecisions after Nagin’s initial failures with regard to positioning buses and supplies.  With regard to the Stafford Act and my earlier contention that jurisdictional takeover requires active assent from the NO government, Dorkafork notes that the Act “is mainly about financial assistance and coordination of aid agencies.  The references to jurisdiction I see

The reflexively anti-Bush headline aside (about which John Cole has more), this is an important article in that some of the behind-the-scenes machinations between the local and federal governments in the wake of the levee breaks are beginning to come to light: Tens of thousands of people spent a fifth day awaiting evacuation from this ruined city, as Bush administration officials blamed state and local authorities for what leaders at

…Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died Saturday evening at his home in suburban Virginia at the age of 80. My thoughts and prayers go out to his friends and family. Quick political thoughts:  The Democrats are now in a bind:  do they take a stand against the confirmation of the eminently qualified John Roberts (who doesn’t have the kind of paper trail that will sink him) and save their ammunition

Rethuglican bastard.

Anyone who cares about responsible budgeting and the health of America’s rivers and wetlands should pay attention to a bill now before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The bill would shovel $17 billion at the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and other water-related projects — this at a time when President Bush is asking for major cuts in Medicaid and other important domestic programs. Among