George W. Bush

Dem congressman: Bush deliberately let bin Laden go

Alex Koppelman — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:10:00 PST

According to a new Senate report, the U.S. may have been closer to capturing Osama bin Laden than ever previously known -- only to have an order from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cause him to slip through our hands. And according to a Democratic congressman, Rep. Maurice Hinchey of New York, that slip-up may not have been accidental.

A sorry-state dinner

Francis Lam — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:01:00 PST

Is good food always about pleasure? In "Feast for Bush," the artist Lauren Garfinkel creates a menu in remembrance of the George W. Bush years that is delightful, playful and horrifying.

Rumsfeld order allowed bin Laden's escape

Gabriel Winant — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:50:00 PST

When Osama bin Laden gave American troops the slip in the early days of the Afghanistan war, it seemed reasonable to give the benefit of the doubt to American military leadership. Tora Bora, the cave complex where the al-Qaida chief had been hiding, is situated in some of the most impassable mountain terrain on the planet. American troops had little experience in the region or local connections, and it was winter to boot. Though they won the battle, catching one particular guy in that kind of scenario was never going to be an easy job.

Public still blames Bush for recession

Gabriel Winant — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:50:00 PDT

In the long view, how the economy is doing might matter more in shaping public opinion -- and hence, elections -- than everything else put together. Unsurprisingly, conservatives have been nattering for a while about how President Obama ought to shoulder the blame for the economy’s performance on his watch. But Republicans seem to be getting nowhere with that argument, according to a new survey from an unlikely source.

The end of the Pax Americana?

Michael Lind — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:08:00 PDT

While the economic crisis continues to overshadow other topics, world politics is undergoing rapid and dramatic changes. In areas from national security policy to trade, the Obama administration has repudiated Bush-era precedents significantly, if not rapidly enough for some critics on the left. The pressures on the administration to continue in the path followed by U.S. administrations since the fall of the Berlin Wall are intense, particularly in light of the victory of the hard-liners in Iran and new revelations about Iran's nuclear program. Even so, President Obama in partnership with other world leaders has a genuine opportunity to bring the post-Cold War era to a definitive end and to preside over the greatest reorganization of global politics since the end of World War II.

Feeling sorry for George Bush

Andrew Leonard — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:47:00 PDT

What's the first lesson to be learned from Matt Latimer's amazing account in GQ of the Bush White House during the height of the financial crisis?

Andy Card's appetite for punishment

Gabriel Winant — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:25:00 PDT

Andy Card, who served as White House chief of staff during President George W. Bush’s first term, has worked as a garbage collector, and at a McDonald’s. Even when he was ostensibly the manager of the Bush administration, he thought of himself as a service worker; in one infamous story, the president once supposedly sent him for a cheeseburger. A former colleague anonymously told the Washington Post, "[T]he president can walk on Andy a little bit. The president talks to him like he's hired help more than he would someone like Cheney or Rumsfeld.”

Cindy Sheehan protests this president, too

Gabriel Winant — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:45:00 PDT

The president has changed, and so has the vacation spot, but Cindy Sheehan hasn't. Little wonder, then, that the veteran Bush protester isn't giving up her practice of following the president on his summer vacation.

The media can't handle the truth

Gene Lyons — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:33:00 PDT

So yet another Bush administration Cabinet-level official has petitioned to get his conscience and reputation back. This time, it's Tom Ridge, former secretary of Homeland Security. The one-time Pennsylvania governor admits in a new book that he felt political pressure from the White House to issue bogus terror alerts before the 2004 presidential election.

John Brennan's dangerous national security advice

Marcy Wheeler — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:01:00 PDT

Editor's note: Glenn Greenwald is on vacation this week. Marcy Wheeler, who blogs at Firedoglake, is guest-blogging today.

Cheney to take his disagreements with Bush public

Alex Koppelman — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:25:00 PDT

There was a time when former Vice President Cheney despised the usual post-White House tell-all book. Now, he's reportedly writing his own, one that will detail his arguments and disappointment with his old boss, former President Bush.

Is Obama really that unpopular?

Paul Maslin — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 03:18:00 PDT

Let's dispense with the "dog bites man" aspect of this first -- Barack Obama's approval rating has slipped. As it does for all presidents in the first year, as hope collides with reality, expectation with output.

Let the military commissions die

David Frakt — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 03:20:00 PDT

As President Obama considers reviving the military commissions, and Congress considers various revisions to the Military Commissions Act, they should do so with a clear understanding of why the military commissions of the Bush administration were created, why they were such a catastrophic failure, and whether there would be any useful purpose to reviving them.

Great moments in political race-baiting

Vincent Rossmeier — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:01:00 PDT

The arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. has managed to smoke out some of the most jaw-dropping acts of shameless race-baiting in recent memory. But while Glenn Beck's and Rush Limbaugh's charge that our biracial President hates white people might seem extreme, it's in line with this country's long and proud tradition of race-baiting in politics.

The Bush vs. Cheney battle over Libby

Alex Koppelman — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:15:00 PDT

Time Magazine's latest issue has a pretty interesting look into the last days of the Bush administration. The article focuses on the conflict between President Bush and Vice President Cheney over the latter man's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, who'd been convicted of obstruction charges relating to the Valerie Plame leak. Bush had already commuted Libby's sentence, sparing him jail time, but Cheney wanted him pardoned, and apparently had trouble taking "no" for an answer.

Bush officials: Where are they now?

Nick Turse — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 07:20:00 PDT

In May, the U.S. economy lost 345,000 nonfarm jobs, pushing the unemployment rate from 8.9 percent to 9.4 percent. According to official statistics, 14.5 million Americans are now looking for work and, as a recent headline at Time.com put it, "The jobs aren't coming back anytime soon." In fact, a team of economists at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank recently reported that "the level of labor market slack could be higher by the end of 2009 than at any other time in the post-World War Two period."

Night of the living neocons

Gary Kamiya — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:18:00 PDT

Like Rasputin, the unhinged "Mad Monk" whom they sometimes seem to have adopted as an intellectual role model, the neoconservatives who brought us the Iraq war refuse to die. Although they have been figuratively stabbed, poisoned, shot, garroted and drowned, they somehow keep standing, still insisting that history will vindicate George W. Bush's glorious crusade. In a world governed by the Victorian moral code conservatives claim to uphold, they would be shunned, shamed and forbidden to appear on television or write Op-Ed columns. But because Beltway decorum apparently requires that disgraced pundits be given a permanent platform to bray their discredited theories, the rest of us are condemned to listen to their ravings.

Gibbs responds to Bush: "we won"

Alex Koppelman — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:30:00 PDT

Former President George W. Bush only just came out with his first public criticism of his successor, but the White House had a simple response waiting for him.

Bush criticizes Obama

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:25:00 PDT

Former President George W. Bush has said he's not going to directly criticize his successor, at least not in public. And he said it again Wednesday, before making some more indirect criticisms of President Obama and his policies.

Obama's Cairo mission: Don't be Bush

Gary Kamiya — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:28:00 PDT

These are momentous days in the Middle East. As President Barack Obama arrives in Cairo to deliver a long-awaited speech addressing relations between America and the Arab/Muslim world, no fewer than four significant events loom on the regional horizon. On June 7, Lebanon will hold elections that could give the militant group Hezbollah unprecedented political power. Iran will hold its elections five days later, with the political fate of hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hanging in the balance. U.S. combat forces are scheduled to leave all Iraqi cities by the end of June, the first tangible step toward ending the American military presence there. And Obama has just handed right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a July deadline to form a new peace policy.