A week in June that was supposed to be a great one for President George W. Bush was eclipsed by the week-long, non-stop televised mourning for President Ronald W. Reagan. In the air on Air Force One, Bush first greeted the Pope—and while in Rome asked top Vatican officials to press American Catholic bishops to […]

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Excuses for Abuses—When Attorney General John Ashcroft told the nation in a televised news conference that terror strikes against the U.S. were imminent, he did it without the calmer Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, by his side. Before many hours had passed, Ridge had pooh-poohed the warning. Ashcroft blew it again in an appearance […]

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State Legislators for Sale—In our June 1 FYI we reported that 1,300 of Washington’s corporate lobbyists have given the Bush campaign more than $1.8 million since 1998. Fifty-two from this group additionally gathered more than $6 million from big business donors for the 2004 Bush re-election bank account. These discoveries came from the difficult-to-decipher reports […]

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Editor’s note: We were fascinated by a recent column in the Washington Post that wondered if “this time Bush could be the candidate on the losing end of the equation.” What was being examined was the weird algebra of the Electoral College, the systematic mishmash that has denied the presidency to three popular-vote winners over the years. […]

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An editorial-page cartoon by Nick Anderson in the Louisville Courier Journal showed a bearded, smiling Saddam Hussein peering through the bars of a prison cell. He was giving a thumbs-up and a “nice work, guys!” comment to two American soldiers as they wired a hooded Iraqi prisoner for electric shocks. Another cartoon, in the Hackensack, New Jersey,Record, […]

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