In a 1977 interview with David Frost, Richard Nixon made a comment that became seared in the American psyche as a perfect example of how a president must not treat the office. Frost asked Nixon if he believed a president is entitled to act illegally if he believes it is in the best interest of the nation. […]

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Recessitation—Members of the House of Representatives quickly got out of town on December 19. And they aren’t coming back until January 31. Why the month and a half paid vacation? Two words: Tom DeLay. After “The Hammer” stepped down as House majority leader last September upon his indictment in Texas, House leaders named only a […]

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The United States Senate is often called “the most exclusive club in Washington,” or exalted by its members as the “world’s greatest deliberative body.” But a new appellation may be in order: the world’s best investment club. According to a study conducted by four business professors, in any given year between 1993 and 1998 roughly […]

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One of the older conventional wisdoms in our nation’s capital is that any president who tries to plug leaks in the ship of state is engaged in a futile, self-defeating exercise. The leaker(s) can never be definitively identified, and any attempt to do so involves tactics more familiar to a police state and likely to […]

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No one could blame President Bush for wanting to get out of town after the end of October. He’d just experienced what non-partisan political observer Charles Cook dubbed “the worst week of the worst month of the worst year of the Bush presidency.” The president’s approval ratings sagged to an all-time low of less than […]

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