National Republicans

George Bush ran as a “compassionate conservative” but hasn’t governed that way – until it came to immigration reform. But his own party is having none of his compassion toward immigrants. By voting 38-18 against his immigration bill, Senate Republicans officially certified Bush as a lame duck President. This is no surprise. Republicans reverted to…

Here’s a peculiar poll. And a good example why – if you’re a candidate – depending on polls is more reliable than depending on your instincts. John McLaughlin and Associates, a respected Republican pollster, reports Fred Thompson has gained nine points on Rudy Giuliani since April. Giuliani dropped from 28% to 24%. Thompson rose from…

If Fred Thompson gets into the Republican presidential race, there will be four major candidates: Thompson, McCain, Giuliani and Romney. If my math is correct, the four have – between them – a total of eight marriages. In fact, as James Carville points out, the only one of them who had just one wife is…

Two more reasons why George Bush reminds me of Richard Nixon more and more every day: His aides pressured an ailing and hospitalized Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004 to sign off on a domestic-eavesdropping plan that the Justice Department believed was illegal. (I never thought it was possible to make Ashcroft a hero, but…

As the Bush administration’s politics-in-Justice scandal mounts in Washington, one would be naïve not to wonder about recent federal prosecutions in Raleigh. No, I’m not defending Jim Black, Michael Decker or Kevin Geddings. They clearly broke the law, betrayed the public trust and deserve punishment. But the harshness of their sentences does raise your antennae.…

Watch for a John McCain comeback in the Republican presidential campaign. Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have taken their star turns. And the social conservatives who dominate the Republican Party can’t be happy. Giuliani is taking them on directly. He says his support for abortion rights, gun control and gay rights should not matter. Good…

Two things jumped out from the pictures taken of George Bush senior, Bill Clinton and Vladimir Putin at Boris Yeltsin’s funeral: Putin’s cold killer’s eyes. Which reminds us what George Bush junior said when he met Putin: he looked in his eyes and saw his soul. And decided it was good. Which explains why Bush…

President Bush calls himself “the decider.” Now he has a new wartime title, bestowed upon himself by himself. Bush met with congressional leaders Wednesday on the war-spending bill. Then he gave a speech criticizing Democrats for their get-out-of-Iraq deadline. He added: “The question is, ‘who ought to make that decision, the Congress or the commanders?’…

Former CIA Director George Tenet (in his new book) says the debate within the Bush Administration before the invasion of Iraq ‘was not about imminence, it was about acting before Saddam did.’ In other words, President Bush invaded Iraq not because Saddam was on the verge of giving al-Qaeda weapons of mass destruction but because…