Bolton is a feint. No one cares who represents us at the UN, but this wild choice drives Democrats to distraction, while Bush and friends stifle giggles. The house majority leader and Social Security lose top billing on cable news to a likely Senate fight. Meanwhile Rove searches for more bait to chum the political [...]

On the day before the funeral of the Pope Republicans finally revealed the source of the infamous Shiavo talking points. It was them. Legal counsel for the point man in the Senate says he wrote the document, but can’t remember printing it. Senator Martinez doesn’t think he ever read the memo, but he gave it [...]

Who the CIA is holding, and where, is too secret to reveal to anyone but senior members of Congress. Why? The prisoners’ friends know they’re missing, and guessed where they are. This reminds me of the run-up to Iraq. Bush couldn’t give us proof Saddam had WMD because it was “top secret.� It might reveal [...]

Bush continues to flog his flawed charge of “crisis� in Social Security, and the value of risky private accounts, despite little support from the public or Congress. Why? He persuaded both that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and posed an imminent threat, when they didn’t. He never said Iraq caused 9/11, but still convinced [...]

Tom DeLay may go the way of House Speaker Jim Wright, another Texan with an ethics blight. Senator Lindsey Grahm thinks he might. Wall Street Journal editorials rarely fault the right, but a recent one accuses DeLay of serial abuses that “sooner or later will sweep him out.� The Majority Leader, known for clout, for [...]

Delays in securing full benefits concern disabled veterans. Reductions in subsidies worry farmers in North Dakota. Failure to hire authorized border patrol personnel leads citizens in Arizona to do it themselves. These groups voted Republican. They should stop complaining, relax and enjoy their tax cuts.

Bush rarely pleases me, like his act to thwart Trent Lott’s hold on the base-closing commission did. He appointed all the members Friday before the Senate reconvened. avoiding the need for confirmation. That will work, but it was tricky we’ll close some military bases, if not in Texas, maybe Mississippi.

Iraqi insurgents attacked Abu Ghraib yesterday. We suffered 18 casualties in 40 minutes. If we had closed the prison, if officers had been accountable, if anyone had accepted responsibility, this might have been avoided. This war has many ifs, but the one we worry about most, “if we just had better intelligence,� is the only [...]

Still another commission report casts doubt on the evidence Bush used to go to war. Why? Millions of Americans, and most of the world never believed Saddam posed an imminent threat. Why waste time and money rehashing history to prove the President was misled by the intelligence community? As he said himself, “Fool me once, [...]

Bush still lusts after Alaskan oil, but prominent Republicans have joined environmentalists in the “Set America Free� coalition. They will lobby for tax incentives to encourage faster development of high mileage cars and trucks. The war and escalating terrorism convinced these conservatives that spending billions in the Middle East is dangerous, and national security depends [...]