The least surprising result of the night is now official: Democrat Mark Warner has defeated Jim Gilmore in Virginia, claiming the seat of retiring Republican Senator John Warner. Mark Warner, a mega-popular former governor who was ready to run for president this year until Barack Obama unexpectedly showed interest in the race during the Read More
The tantalizing illusions of war opponents about two Republican Party elders have this week been shattered.
John Warner, the soon-to-be-retired Virginia Senator, and George H.W. Bush, the President’s father, potentially have the clout to engineer an 11th hour maneuver that might hasten the end of the war.
But neither of them will ever exercise that Read More
With John Warner gobbling up headlines, it’s a good time to return to the question of his political future – namely, does the 80-year-old Republican have one?
The betting for some time now is that he doesn’t, and that he will hang it up next year when his fifth terms expires. Certainly, Read More
Some interesting Iraq developments this afternoon, within minutes of each other:
First, the latest National Intelligence Estimate – the first exclusively on Iraq since January – was released, and its title sums up its findings nicely – “Prospects for Iraq’s Stability: Some Security Progress but Political Reconciliation Elusive.”
One month Read More
The talk this summer had been that Congressional Republicans, frustrated by an Iraq war that has now dragged on longer than World War II, were fast approaching their boiling point.
And for good reason: The war cost the G.O.P. both houses of Congress last fall. Can you imagine the electoral fallout if the party Read More
If America’s need for substantial leadership were not so grave, we might find some dark amusement in George W. Bush’s latest attempt to escape his own political quagmire. Sinking to Nixonian levels of public distrust and disdain in most polls, and facing a Democratic Congress, he tried to shift the focus to health care, climate Read More
Yes, Virginia, There Is No Senator Warner
As that mottled, wattled crew on Capitol Hill drones on about the President, there is the unmistakable notion that our nation’s Representatives and Senators are mouthing the words to a particularly loathsome Top 40 tune. The song not only remains the same, it is sung with the kind Read More
