George W. Bush

By Clay Waters Another great conservative philosopher I write about is James Burnham, another mentor to Buckley. And he was one of the first strong critics of what he saw as, called it "Caesarism," the presidency that grows so overweening in its power that it violates the strength of the other branches. I...

By Paul It's easy to criticize obscure White House staffers who write kiss-and-tell books. But depending on how the book is executed, and assuming the administration is no longer in power, these books can be worthwhile. I recall reading two of them after George H.W. Bush left office, including one b...

By Paul Matt Latimer was deputy director of speechwriting for President George W. Bush during the latter part of his presidency. Before that, Matt was the principal speechwriter for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. It's time for conservatives to see what has happened there, so we can get to the work...

By Meteor Blades Ending the Bush Doctrine and the associated policy spin-offs, would not, of course, mean an end to all the perniciousness of American exceptionalism. But it would be a major step in the right direction. Although it would elicit an extended round of shrieks against Obama from the crowd whic...

By David Swanson Perhaps presidents simply cannot be expected to give back powers gained by the executive branch, but shouldn't we expect Congress to work to take them back on our behalf? When Alberto Gonzales resigned as attorney general, he did so because a rapidly growing list of members of Congress s...

By The Huffington Post News Editors For example, in August 2004, then-Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge raised the alert level to orange, the second-highest level signifying a high risk of attack, in Washington, New York City and Newark, N.J., because of potential threats to financial buildings there. But Democrats q...

By Peter Dreier Langston Hughes' poem, "Let America Be America Again," written in 1936, contrasted the nation's promise with its mistreatment of his fellow African-Americans, the poor, Native Americans, workers, farmers and immigrants: Sure ain't no Republican either,

By Alfred W. McCoy Further up the chain of command, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, as she recently told the Senate, "convened a series of meetings of NSC [National Security Council] principals in 2002 and 2003 to discuss various issues... relating to detainees." This group, including Vice Pre...

By Jay Nordlinger It is a truth universally accepted that the Republican party has moved to the right. Only--it is not true. At all. But strange how an untruth gets cemented, by repetition: and a bullying repetition at that.   We have had another outburst of "The Republican party has moved to the right" with Sena...

Leonard Pitts chats with with readers every Wednesday from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. EDT on www.MiamiHerald.com. So apparently, we're not allowed to talk about George W. Bush anymore. I found this out recently after opining about a newspaper report documenting the use -- actually, the uselessness -- of Bus...

By Tim Graham Mr. Sanger, the chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times, drops the strict detachment of a daily reporter and lets rip, delivering a withering indictment of his longtime subject: President George W. Bush’s foreign policy, which he writes "has left us less admired by our alli...

By Stuart Whatley On August 9th, 2001, Former President George W. Bush announced that federal funds may be awarded for research using human embryonic stem cells if the following criteria are met: • The derivation process (which begins with the destruction of the embryo) was initiated prior to 9:00 P.M. EDT o...

By The Huffington Post News Editors I think we're going to see a reversal of privatization," said Harvey B. Feigenbaum, a political science professor at George Washington University. "When contracts come up for renewal, they will see if it would be better for the public sector to do the work."

By mcjoan It's been a while since we checked in on the Bush midnight regulations flurry. As a reminder, in the waning days of Republican rule in the White House, there was a concerted effort to inflict as much damage as possible in key, hot-button political issue areas. For example:

By George Lakoff As President Obama prepares to address a joint session of Congress, what can we expect to hear? The pundits will stress the nuts-and-bolts policy issues. What they miss is the Obama Code. As President Obama prepares to address a joint session of Congress, what can we expect to hear?

By Richard The New York Times's Ben Brantely found it fun, if a bit slow in parts: The New York Post thought it was yuks-heavy but slight as well: The grouch at USA Today hated it, shockingly: The New York Daily News was the most praising of the three:

By BarbinMD George McGovern tells Obama that sending troops from Iraq to Afghanistan is "going from the frying pan into the fire." Karl Rove continues to review the show that closed out of town, saying that George Bush "got the most important things right."

By DemFromCT HE LEAVES the White House as one of the least popular and most divisive presidents in American history. At home, his approval rating has been stuck in the 20s for months; abroad, George Bush has presided over the most catastrophic collapse in America’s reputation since the second world wa...

By Tom Engelhardt Ever since, presidents have regularly preached strength beyond compare, threatened potential enemies, and hit the call notes of an ever more imperial presidency. Underneath the often dull words of modern inaugurals lies a distinct hubris, an emphasis on the potential limitlessness...

By Robert Guttman After 9/11, the president rose to the occasion and rallied the American public. His speech to the firefighters in New York will be remembered as one of his better talks during his presidency. His toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan had the support of an overwhelming number of Americans a...

By Jason Notte After nearly a decade, it's nice to see that Americans can petition their president again. If anyone is worried about Barack Obama's presidency bearing any resemblance whatsoever to George W. Bush's, the last few weeks should put your mind at ease.

By Mark Silva On Thursday comes a prime-time address from the White House. But that speech is unlikely to echo the list of mistakes Bush acknowledged for reporters Monday in the West Wing: prematurely declaring "mission accomplished" in Iraq; failing to find the weapons of mass destruction cited as t...

By The Huffington Post News Editors The unvarnished review of George W. Bush's presidency reveals a portrait of America he never would have imagined. Bush said he would change the tone of Washington. He never did. Of course, neither did the Democrats running Congress. More on George Bush

By David Latt Vice President Cheney has laid his cards on the table and he's a hard-nosed competitor. The only thing that would trump his play would be if President Bush does use his pardon power, but not to pardon Dick Cheney but George W. Bush. Then the game's over and Dick Cheney and the others will be left t...

By The Huffington Post News Team CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Let me ask you just because there is a couple of news of the day things I wanted to get you on. And the first is, are you going to bail out the auto industry? GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're considering all options.

By Robert Higgs All politics being local, Republican congressman Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan was consulted, and he declared, “With the legislative opportunities now exhausted, I urge the president of the United States to immediately release Wall Street TARP funds to the domestic automakers to a...

Here's a horrific thought. George W. Bush, left as the leader of the free world, with absolutely nothing left to lose. He's destined to go down in history as one of the worst Presidents of all time, he's managed to carve himself unprecedented executive authority, and he's got at least two full...

By Jay Cost Many of these states again showed a high degree of polarization in 2008. This time, however, they were joined by most of the remaining states in the South Central regions: Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Never before have we seen these states vote so heavily ag...

In a recent press conference in New York Federal Hall National Memorial, nearly-ex-President George Bush revealed that free market capitalism "is far more than economic theory." Free Market Capitalism is a friend. A best friend. President Bush defended Free Market Capitalism, saying i...

In 2004, President Bush was re-elected with 286 electoral votes, defeating Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) by 3.3 million votes -- the smallest popular-vote margin since 1976 (excluding the 2000 election) and the lowest electoral vote count for an incumbent president's re-election since Woodr...

By Stacey A. Ward, Esq. Some of that positive coverage was related to evidence that the financial crisis was aiding Obama. "Recent economic woes have given Democrat Barack Obama a clear lead over Republican John McCain," declared a story posted on AOL News on Sept. 24, citing a 9-point lead for Obama in a new Washi...

Some of that positive coverage was related to evidence that the financial crisis was aiding Obama. "Recent economic woes have given Democrat Barack Obama a clear lead over Republican John McCain," declared a story posted on AOL News on Sept. 24, citing a 9-point lead for Obama in a new Washi...

By noreply@blogger.com (Nate Silver) Shaw tells CNN viewers: “George Bush, governor of Texas, will become the 43rd president of the United States. At 18 minutes past two o’clock eastern time, CNN declares that George Walker Bush has won Florida’s 25 electoral votes and this should put him over the top.”

By James Rocchi But W. has plenty of urgency; you could argue that what it lacks is a point of view, or rather a point of view other than Freudian family psychodrama, with George W. Bush (Josh Brolin) fighting for the presidency and fighting in Iraq as a way to earn the respect and love of his distant, driven fat...

By Stacey A. Ward, Esq. The Accidental President McCain is . . . shown at the 2004 Republican convention imploring, 'Stand up. Stand up with our President and fight. We're Americans and we'll never surrender.'" Iraq Watch Bush and Berlusconi Karl Rove Watch The Sad Lot of the White House Correspondent

By Ampersand This seems plausible to conservatives because they’re projecting George Bush’s behavior onto Obama. In 2000, Bush ran for President as a moderate; Bush campaigned on a platform of humility in foreign policy,1 against extreme partisanship, and for fiscal responsibility. But even befo...

By rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) The Democrats declare, "Over the past eight years, the current Administration has not only failed to promote biomedical and stem cell research, it has actively stood in the way of that research." Actually, the Bush administration's support for the National Institutes of Health has hel...

Here's an example that is small but revealing. Obama led with the best sales pitch he has to offer: that he is not George Bush. But of course, Obama is running against John McCain, not Bush. So he attempted to justify the substitution by claiming that "John McCain has voted with George Bush nine...

By gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) If you care about civil liberties, foreign policy, government spending, expansions in executive power, Social Security reform, traditional African dancing, or you name it, Bush's presidency has been the sort of ongoing disaster-cum-embarrassment that the baseball team he used to...

By Ueno Murakami Obama has his faults, but McCain is pathetic, and if the voters of the United States of America want crap executive leadership for another 4 years to (God forbid) 8 years then they should vote for McCain. If they are smart they will take that “risk” and vote for Obama. America was built on a risk....

By Geoffrey Dickens VIEIRA: Let's go back in time now. MCCLELLAN: Well the Vice President was given a lot of deference by the President. He was someone, he's someone that he trusts very much. And, and-- VIEIRA: Do you think he was giving the President bad advice?

By Angie According to Richard Benedetto, Eugene Robinson, writing for the Washington Post, believes we need an "egghead" in the Oval Office; specifically, Al Gore: Interestingly, Thomas Sowell recently had this to say about Senator John McCain:

By eriposte The “dynasty” argument of course is at best inarticulate. A dynasty must have a sequence of some consequence and some durability. Bill Clinton was the first member of his family to win elective office. Hillary Clinton was the second member of the family to win elective office. That is it for th...

By Shaun Manley But, cooler heads are prevailing, as Democrats are saying they don't want to move too quickly to change the law because civil liberties are on the chopping block. Also, Democrats don't want to give Bush the ultimate power to spy on people.

By Matt Finley Iraq Did you know Bush turned the White House Green when he moved in? Solar Panels, you know, eco-friendly stuff. Gore was there for 8 years, what did he do to make the White House use less energy? I have stacks of pages of stuff. Empty pages. He didn't do squat. Then compare Bush and Gore's homes. Bu...

By John Bambenek Just today President Bush has commuted the sentence that Scooter Libby was given in his obstruction of justice trial. Libby will still face a fine and probation but he will serve no time in prison. His conviction will also remain on his record.

By Amanda In the report’s review of 500 contracts, 118 contracts worth $745.5 billion “experienced significant overcharges, wasteful spending, or mismanagement over the last five years.” A recent report by American Progress Senior Fellow Scott Lilly has more details about the Bush administra...

By info@reason.com (Ryan H. Sager) Social Security was far from the biggest issue in the 2004 campaign, but when Bush won reelection, he decided it was time to take his big gamble. He dedicated a 1,200-word section of his 2005 State of the Union Address to a call for reforming Social Security with personal accounts, then emba...

Justice Janice Brown of the California Supreme Court would be terrific. All-time favorite Supreme Court justice: It's gotta be a tie: William O. Douglas and William Brennan. Both were champions of the Bill of Rights, and we are Americans because of the Bill of Rights. Michael McMenamin

Favorite sitting Supreme Court justice: Antonin Scalia, for writing in Printz v. United States (1997) that the Constitution confers upon the Congress "not all governmental powers, but only discrete, enumerated ones." Justice Janice Brown of the California Supreme Court would be terr...