And Now in Words For anyone who gets tired of charts, graphs, and excessive numbers, Dwight Meredith uses compelling prose to lay out the current budget deficit situation. Even if you are a chart and numbers kind of person, go read it. And, most of all, if you think everything the government touches is a […]

More Deficit Data I just came across OMBwatch, another good site for those excited by data on federal revenue and spending. There, I found a page devoted to “Interpreting the Return to Budget Deficits“. The analysis and findings are similar to my earlier post, but with more detail and some additional graphs. In OMBwatch’s estimation, […]

It All Depends on What Constitutes an Imminent Threat By now, you’ve probably heard about the House Republicans–specifically Rep. Bill Thomas–calling the cops on the Democrats, or rather one Democrat. Eschaton’s Lambert has the money-quote from an Austin-American Statesman piece on the incident: Republicans defended Thomas, saying he had no choice but to call in […]

One in Fifty-One Republican Senators Agree with Angry Bear Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska): “To just throw George Tenet’s body from the train and say, ‘That takes care of the problem,’ I don’t think is the way to do this.” Hagel pointed to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell […]

Good News Unfortunately, 37 + 16 is still 53, but this is still a step in the right direction: The same poll also reports that Bush’s approval rating is down 8 points to 55%, a small majority say the president is mishandling the economy, only 40% say the Iraq campaign has been a success, and […]

Axing Private Lynch In a move surely unrelated to “fatigue, stress, mechanical malfunctions and a disastrous series of errors” being much less exciting than an ambush, attack, and heroic soldier defending herself with every bullet in her revolver, CBS is cancelling its Private Lynch movie. CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves also admits that the apparent quid […]

This is Just Weird Ten years later, there are still people who question Vince Foster’s death. This (and this) definitely won’t hasten the waning of the press maelstrom: The BBC confirmed today that Dr. David Kelly, the British weapons expert who committed suicide on Thursday, was the source for a story on doctoring intelligence files […]

Better Late than Never I just caught a recent Spinsanity piece on the spinning of the deficit. They have a great exchange from McClellan’s first day: Q: One more thing, if I may. You had a laundry list, basically, about what has contributed to the deficit, and you didn’t include the tax cuts in there. […]

A Half-Answer Creates More Questions Back when the White House first said the African Uranium line should not have been in the SOTU, the NYT’s telling of the tale included this: How Mr. Bush’s statement made it into last January’s State of the Union address is still unclear. No one involved in drafting the speech […]

Blaming Tenet I’ve heard Lieberman call for Tenet’s resignation, and now apparently Dean is joining him. I see two major problems with this. First, it really doesn’t seem like Tenet’s fault that the bad intelligence made it into the SOTU. It’s clearly the responsibility of the NSC. Ultimately, the responsibility is the President’s, notwithstanding new […]