Category Archives: Politics

When Will George Bush (and Karl Rove) Apologize to McCain?

I hate to find myself defending Donald Trump, but what George W. Bush did to John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary was far, far worse than anything Trump has said.

Devastated by his loss in the New Hampshire primary, Bush had to win SC.  So he did “push polls” leading voters to believe that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child, when he and Cindy had of course adopted their daughter Bridget.  Bush also implied that McCain’s time as a POW had left him too mentally ill to serve as president.  Bush won SC, but he sure as hell didn’t win fair.

John Kasich Won’t Be the Nominee

Those of you who’ve been looking forward to Ohio Gov. John Kasich becoming a GOP 2016 candidate need to put your hopes elsewhere. This is a guy with a serious political death wish. Or as Mitt might say, a “severe” political death wish.

Kasich has hired Fred Davis. Yes, the same Fred Davis who worked for Jon Huntsman in 2012. The same Fred Davis who produced the “Demon Sheep” ad for Carly Fiorina and the “I Am Not a Witch” ad for Christine O’Donnell.  We’re talking the two worst ads in the history of politics, which I guess is an achievement of some sort.

Kasich has hired John Weaver, who also worked for Huntsman, and who was unceremoniously fired by John McCain back in July 2007, when McCain’s campaign was looking very, very dead.  Weaver let Huntsman prattle on in Chinese during a primary debate, because, you know, there’s nothing the GOP base loves more than a guy who’s fluent in Chinese.

As a late entrant, Kasich needs to make a splash, which I expect he will.  That splash you hear before a heavy object sinks straight to the bottom.

The Snowstorm Made Them Do It

John McCain blames the Benedict Tom Cotton letter ‘splaining our Constitution to Iran on the weather:

“It was kind of a very rapid process.  Everybody was looking forward to getting out of town because of the snowstorm.  I think we probably should have had more discussion about it, given the blowback that there is.”

There you have it, people.  The world’s greatest deliberative body, until a few flakes fall from the sky, inducing panic — and treason.

Hillary Wouldn’t Have Needed Two Phones

Arguing that she used private email for all of her State Department correspondence out of a desire for “convenience,” Hillary Clinton said that she would have needed two phones if she’d used a State Department account.

But that isn’t true.  When I worked on the 2008 presidential campaign, I had one BlackBerry.  It had the official campaign email on it, as well as a couple of email accounts I used for personal correspondence with family and friends.

Her claim that she didn’t want to carry two “devices” is BS.

Is Rudy Senile?

I don’t ask this question based on Rudy Giuliani’s comment that “I do not believe that the President loves America.”  The statement is absurd and nasty, but it doesn’t mean he has dementia.

No, what makes me ask the question is Rudy’s follow-on assertion that “I’m not questioning his patriotism.”

What is patriotism?  It’s love of country.  So if you argue that Obama doesn’t love America, yet he’s patriotic, there must be something wrong with your brain.

The White House had it exactly right when they said they feel sorry for Rudy.

What Mitt Really Thinks About Jebbie and Christie

“But those familiar with Romney’s thinking as he’s been contemplating a run and over the years say that he has held a jaundiced view of the former Florida governor dating all the way back to his handling of the Terri Schiavo case, and has come to see Bush as a non-entity in the 2016 nomination contest. Romney is said to see Bush as a small-time businessman whose financial transactions would nonetheless be fodder for the Democrats and as terminally weighed down with voters across the board based on his family name. Romney also doesn’t think much of Bush’s political skills (a view mocked by Bush’s camp, who say Romney is nowhere near Bush’s league as a campaigner).  Romney also considers Bush the national Republican figure who was the least helpful to him during his last run for the White House, a position that has darkened Ann Romney’s view of Bush as well.

“Romney and Christie became friends in the last cycle, but Romney nevertheless has dismissed his pal as a non-factor. Thanks to the 2012 veep vetting process, Romney became intimately familiar with some of the less publicized controversies from the New Jersey governor’s past, and believes that several of those flaps would mushroom so broadly that Christie soon would be eliminated from consideration by voters and donors.”

From “How Mitt Romney Made His Decision Not To Run,” Mark Halperin, Bloomberg Politics

Laugh of the Day

From Timothy Noah’s NYT review of a new biography of Nelson Rockefeller*:

“Impressed by a Thomas Aquinas quote he came across in a newspaper editorial, Rockefeller asked a staff aide to arrange a meeting with this astute theologian.  Rockefeller’s grasp of science didn’t inspire much confidence either.  After being briefed on the harm aerosol products were doing to the ozone layer, he asked: ‘How do all those spray cans get up there?'”

And you thought Dan Quayle was our dumbest Veep.

* On His Own Terms:  A Life of Nelson Rockefeller, Richard Norton Smith