My Take on MTP Here’s my take, prior to looking at other blogs: Bush did really, really, well. Most importantly, he sounded knowledgeable (which may fuel suspicions about vetting of questions.) Russert almost never interrupted or contradicted him, and I even caught him nodding in agreement a few times, which surely helped create this impression. […]

Bush’s Military Records I’m still digesting the President’s MTP appearance. One interesting bit of possible fallout just caught my eye. Bush was asked about the well-known allegations that he failed to report to duty with the National Guard for a period of time in 1972-73. Russert: But would you allow pay stubs, tax records, anything […]

Lies, Direct from the President’s Mouth From Bush’s MTP appearance this morning: RUSSERT: But your base conservatives, and listen to Rush Limbaugh, the Heritage Foundation, CATO Institute, they’re all saying you are the biggest spender in American history. BUSH: Well, they’re wrong. If you look at the appropriations bills that were passed under my watch, […]

Opinion from the UK No, this isn’t from the liberal Guardian, though it sounds like it is. Instead, it’s from the Sunday Herald (which, as far as I know is neither left nor right. The Telegraph and London Times are both right leaning, the Telegraph moreso. Perhaps a commenter can give some background on the […]

The South Bill Maher’s HBO show is very good — either in spite of or because of his including both liberals and conservatives on the panels. If you like The Daily Show, then it’s a pretty safe bet that you will also like Real Time. He had a great line last night: after discussing Kay’s […]

Red vs. Blue Given my proclivity for Red and Blue numbers (see “Topics,” left), I’m not sure how I missed this until now. On 1/30, the NYT ran an Op/Ed by Gore’s former speechwriter Daniel Pink on th subject: You might expect that in the 2000 presidential election, Republicans, the party of low taxes and […]

Prospects for Consumption Growth In the comments, General Glut asks the salient question in the wake of today’s unemployment report: “How long until these poor jobs numbers (and the even poorer wage and salary numbers) start eating into US consumption levels?” Good question! This is especially important when you consider that consumption spending (spending by […]

Bush Approval Drops Below 50 The AP just released its poll results this morning. It’s the second major poll this week (the other was Gallup) that shows Bush’s approval rating sinking below 50% for the first time. Do chickens really come home to roost, even for the Republican machine? For your edification and amusement, here’s […]

Sluggish Job Creation The new unemployment report is out. The estimate is that 112,000 jobs were created in January. That’s more job creation than we’ve seen in a couple of years, but still below expectations. The unemployment rate fell to 5.6%, thanks to a continuation of the surprisingly low labor force participation rate. All in […]

Meet the Press In a sign of desparation, optimism, or perhaps possession of very incriminating photos of Tim Russert doing things that Rick Santorum can only dream of, President Bush will be on Meet the Press this Sunday. Most expect Russert to lob softballs at the president, but even so, it’s not Bush’s best forum. […]