Koufax Award Voting Now Open Start here, and work your way down. AB

Going in the Wrong Direction Just last week, the president announced that he planned to cut the deficit in half over the next five years. Yet the latest deficit projection for 2005 is now $20b higher than the previous projection: In its bi-annual budget outlook, details of which were obtained by Reuters from congressional sources, […]

More Speaks for Itself This time from a Yahoo news story excerpting from a forthcoming biography of Tony Blair: The extent of Mr Cheney’s opposition emerges in the biography of the British prime minister by Philip Stephens, the Financial Times’ political columnist. In the run-up to the war, Mr Blair worked closely with Mr Bush […]

What it Takes To Be President … Apparently, the media has concluded that Dean lacks it. August Pollack lays out a great plan for Dean to become more presidential. AB UPDATE: Click here for a scandalous Dean photo. Seriously, click. You’ll be glad you did. (Via Atrios)

Blogging of the President Tonight on NPR from 9-11 Eastern, a bunch of bloggers (Atrios, Andrew Sullivan, Gary Hart, Jerome Armstrong, Frank Rich, Josh Marshall, Garance Franke-Ruta, Ed Cone, Jeff Jarvis, Kevin Phillips, Richard Reeves) will be talking politics). You can find the list of participating stations here. Or you can listen to the webcast. […]

Another Speaks for Itself Statement Colin Powell: One day after David Kay, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, said he believes Hussein had not stockpiled unconventional weapons for years, Powell told reporters that his prominent Feb. 5 argument was based on “what our intelligence community believed was credible.” However, neither Powell nor Kay has […]

No Annotation Necesary Usually, I feel that I should add something to statements that I quote, but this speaks for itself: Asked directly if he was saying that Iraq did not have any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the country, Dr. Kay replied, according to a transcript of the taped interview made […]

Hitting the Nail on Its Head Slate’s Michael Kinsley on the administration’s philosophy (hint: it’s not actually compassionate conservatism): So, to sum up: Talk loudly. Carry a big stick anyway. Spend money. Borrow to pay for it. Fiddle the books. I guess that’s a governing philosophy of sorts. Via Mark Kleiman. AB

Roach Describes the “Frothy” 2000’s Stephen Roach (chief economist at Morgan Stanley) is attending the annual World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland right now. He sends back this report: I conceded the near-term outlook to the momentum crowd, [but] I dug in my heels on what I continue to believe is the key bone of […]

Best N.H. Dem Debate Performance In my opinion, the award goes to Peter Jennings, who displayed masterful control of himself by maintaining a perfectly straight face while asking the following: JENNINGS: Reverend Sharpton, I’d like to ask you a question about domestic policy, if you don’t mind… [G]ive us a little bit about your views […]