What a difference an election makes. Now, to the shock of the White House head-in-the-sand crew, members of Congress are holding them accountable on all fronts. Today, we see the family of Pat Tillman, and Jessica Lynch, and a House committee uncovering the lies and cover-up from Bush’s military. We have seen Republicans and Democrats rake Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his aides over the coals and uncover more political incompetence.

Did the “loyal Bushies” really think that none of this was going to come to light? Did they really believe that they could keep the lid on their White House decision making? Did they really believe they could run roughshod over the Congress, as though it did not even exist? Read more...

Why are Democrats attaching a completely unrelated minimum-wage provision into the Iraq war supplemental? What exactly does increasing the minimum wage have to do with providing our troops the money they need to protect themselves from Iraqi insurgents?

I have two answers: politics and partisanship.

First, the Democratic leadership is trying to trip up moderate Republicans who might want to vote to support an increase in the minimum wage but don’t want to surrender in Iraq. And since they know the president will veto this bill, they can get him on record vetoing a minimum-wage bill when he already said that he would sign one. Read more...

The following is an excerpt from an op-ed that appears in tomorrow's issue of The Hill:

Plan B aims to end the war among Iraqis and win the war against al Qaeda.

If Iraq is Vietnam, George Bush supports the moral equivalent of the Viet Cong with a Maliki government dependent on Shi'ite death squads and often allied with Iranian interests.

Iranian strategy was to fight to the last American and remove their hated Sunni enemy, replaced by Shi'ite allies.

Iran-supported insurgents will lie low for the surge while Americans kill their Sunni enemies, and Sunni Iraqis are walled in by new versions of the Berlin Wall, de facto and de jure. Read more...

It is a simple proposition that Paul Wolfowitz should be fired from the World Bank, now, because:

1. He helped a girflriend in a way that lacked the integrity necessary to lead the World Bank.

2. He has created such alienation and anger among the World Bank senior management and staff that he has lost all crediblity and all capability of managing the institution.

3. At a time when the Bank should be rooting out corruption in the nations that receive its funds, Wolfowitz destroys
the credibility of the Bank itselt with respect to both donor and recipient nations.

At the Bank, Wolfowitz has demonstrated the kind of imperial arrogance that is a hallmark of where George W. Bush went tragically and catastrophically wrong in Iraq. Read more...

The Federation for American Immigration Reform is in Washington, D.C., uniting talk radio hosts and citizens in an effort to alert the public and Congress to the real issues of immigration. It is estimated that there are 20 million illegal immigrants in the United States and thousands flooding across the southern border every day. We must encourage Congress to enact and enforce immigration laws that protect the interests and security of this great nation. We must rally against organizations that make it easy for illegal immigrants to obtain credit of any kind. This definitely sends the wrong message to Americans that they no longer count as it appears to be a double standard (a higher standard for U.S. residents and a lower standard for illegal immigrants). That the federal government has done little to resolve the problem of illegal immigration does not mean that banks and other business interests have the right to profit from illegal immigration. We can stop this proliferation of profit if we, as consumers, influence smaller businesses that depend on our patronage by patronizing those who operate in the public interest and refuse to support illegal immigration. Hopefully this will provide economic incentives for companies to act responsibly and avoid hiring illegal immigrants or engaging in business practices that encourage illegal immigration. Read more...

If you haven’t seen it already, I urge you to look at Washington Post columnist Colby King’s column on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) hypocritical stance regarding the firing of shock-jock Don Imus.

Clinton, you’ll recall, helped lead the charge against Don Imus for his deplorable and now-infamous remarks regarding the Rutgers women’s basketball team. I didn’t like Imus’s comments and I thought they were racist and indefensible. What I didn’t realize, as Mr. King points out, is that Mrs. Clinton raised more than $800,000 at the home of a rapper called Timbaland — a fellow who makes Imus’s comments look like child’s play.

As I read Mr. King’s column I realized that Timbaland’s vile lyrics are just the type of negative and destructive words that perpetuate an image of African-Americans as violent, poor drug dealers who regard human life and the status of women in low regard. Consider the following that Timbaland has to offer — I’m quoting directly from King’s column from the Post this past Saturday: Read more...

If the Washington Post is correct, Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-Md.) is helping Democrats write the Iraq war-spending bill in the House, but Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) hasn't been contacted by the Democratic leadership in that chamber. Snowe is one of the top three most moderate Republicans now serving in the Senate and a clear pick up for the Democrats on these showdown votes on Iraq; she even supported the resolution opposing the war. Now as they hunker down for the funding fight Snowe is siding with Republicans but was quoted in the paper as saying "it wouldn't take a lot" to win her over.

What's wrong with these people? The two parties are supposed to work hard to find common ground, not work hard to ignore it when it obviously exists. Sure, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has joined with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) on legislation to cut off war funding by March 31, 2008 — but he hasn't engaged Snowe, who reportedly approves of March 31, 2008 as a target date for ending combat operations.

Reid has a majority of one with Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) still recovering from brain surgery. In a 50-49 Senate, what could possibly be the reason he isn't he looking for more votes?

For Washington, D.C, it’s as close as we ever get to prom night: The White House Correspondents Dinner. I was one of the 3,000 who crowded in the ballroom of the Hilton Towers for this year’s intimate event. And, as always, it was jammed with big names.

From the White House: President and Mrs. Bush, Karl Rove, Tony Snow. From the Cabinet: Condoleezza Rice, Alberto Gonzales and Michael Chertoff. From the Congress: Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), David Dreier (R-Calif.), Jane Harman (D-Calif.). From Politics 2008: Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. From the states: Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley; New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer; California Attorney General Jerry Brown. Read more...

I am not making this up.

On April 18, Dick Morris and other Hillary critics played up the results of the Gallup Poll (conducted April 13-15), which showed Hillary Clinton's margin over Barack Obama reduced significantly from February to mid-April (from 19 percent to 5 percent).

Then just a day later, on April 19, two additional credible national polls of Democrats and independent–leaning Democrats were conducted — by the Washington Post/ABC and Fox News (the latter certainly not a hotbed of liberal, pro-Hillary bias). The results were the reverse of Gallup's — Sen. Clinton showing some gains or at least holding her own since February and Sen. Obama appearing to plateau, despite a great two months with the successful trip to Selma and the impressive fundraising results in the first quarter. (Interestingly, the Post/ABC poll also showed Sen. Clinton once again ahead of Sen. Obama among African-Americans, by a margin of 43 percent to 34 percent, a reversal of Obama's lead in some polls shortly after the Selma trip.) Read more...