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How low can he go? (06:28) - President George W. Bush's free fall in approval ratings by American voters means more trouble for Republicans and more hope for Democrats as the midterm election approach in November.
Sunday 9 April
Republican silence (19:00) - That deafening silence from Sunday stemmed from the absence of Republicans willing to go on the talk show circuit and defend President George W. Bush's campaign to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson with an orchestrated campaign of leaks of previously-classified information....
Friday 31 March
Is John Snow next on Bush's hit list? (04:32) - The changing of the guard involving President Bush's chief of staff is renewing speculation about the fate of Treasury Secretary John Snow, the administration's lead economic salesman for three years.
Thursday 30 March
Everything new is old again (03:08) - So now we come to President Bush's problems, which this week entailed the ritual second-term sacrifice of a chief of staff, Andrew Card, to be replaced by a virtually identical chief of staff, Josh Bolten, imported all the way across the White House driveway from the budget office.
Wednesday 29 March
It it real or is it Memorex? (07:43) - President Bush's replacement of his chief of staff may, some feel, signal that he is willing to listen to those who say he must change if his party wants to survive the mid-term elections this fall and the Presidential elections in 1988. Others feel the changes will be few and only cosmetic and that Bush will always be Bush.
Tuesday 28 March
Bush tries the back door to clean up his media image (06:46) - As President George W. Bush wages his public war to change opinions on his failed Iraq war, he is also schmoozing the press in a series of off-the-record briefings in an attempt to sway media coverage.
Saturday 25 March
Is Bush flipping out? (08:06) - We hear more and more White House chatter about increasing Presidential temper tantrums – reports of an out-of-control President George W. Bush losing it with close aides and even during incidental contacts with lower-level West Wing staff....
A drunken Dubya? (15:33) - When Washington insiders gather over a drink or three the topic is often whether or not President George W. Bush is on or off the wagon.Bush, an admitted alcoholic who claims he quit without any self-help program, may or may...
Wednesday 15 March
So much for the compassionate conservative (02:47) - The White House has rejected hurricane disaster-recovery loans at a higher rate than any other administration in the last 15 years, according to a congressional study by Democrats.
Claude Allen's dirty little secret (02:38) - During President Bush's State of the Union address, Claude Allen had a coveted box seat as a guest of the first lady. He sat there with an embarrassing secret. For weeks as he worked side-by-side with Bush on policy that would be included in that Jan. 31 address, he carried the secret that was about to threaten the reputation he built during a swiftly rising career in Republican government.
White House adds anti-gay language to security clearance requirements (01:57) - The Bush administration last year quietly rewrote the rules for allowing gays and lesbians to receive national-security clearances, drawing complaints from civil rights activists. The Bush administration said security clearances cannot be denied "solely on the basis of the sexual orientation of the individual." But it removed language saying sexual orientation "may not be used as a basis for or a disqualifying factor in determining a person's eligibility for a security clearance."
Monday 13 March
The threshold for impeachment (20:44) - During our history's most prominent presidential dalliance, Monica Lewinski gave Bill Clinton a copy of Nicholson Baker's "Vox," a fictional erotic phone conversation between two strangers. Baker's new book, "Checkpoint," is another extended dialogue, this time between two old friends, Ben, a historian, and Jay, who's so outraged by the deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians at a Marine checkpoint that he decides to assassinate President Bush. Assassination? Let's not get carried away. Of course, Baker isn't actually advocating assassination -- that's against the law and, besides, Jay is a fictional character who's clearly deranged. The First Amendment permits this sort of attention-getting hyperbole in fiction. But Jay's irrational reaction to the state of affairs in his fictional world is credible only if a reasonable case can be made that things are going very, very wrong in real life.
GOP funk increases as Bush's ratings fall (19:37) - Republican despair over the sagging political fortunes and eroding credibility of President George W. Bush is reaching epidemic proportions.
Bush's war against women (17:55) - Now it's official. Many of you have read my detonations during the past year about the fact American women's cultural progress is in a stall, if not in a freefall. I've written that the number of women in Congress has remained relatively stagnant for the past decade. I've reported on data that prove the percentage of women occupying seats in state legislatures (the training ground for national politics) is down for the first time this decade after three decades of rising rapidly. I've written that women's progress toward CEO status in major corporations is edging forward at a molasses-like pace and the same is true for women on corporate boards.
Bush's poll numbers continue free fall (17:42) - A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released on Monday put President George W. Bush's approval rating at 36 percent, a new low for that poll but similar to his rating in other recent surveys....
Dems see port debacle as proof Bush is incompetent (05:25) - Democrats have seized on the collapse of the Dubai ports deal to buttress their case that George W. Bush is an incompetent president unable to get the job done at home or abroad.
Republicans ponder future without Bush (04:33) - Republican contenders for the White House walked a political tightrope at a weekend gathering of party activists -- expressing solidarity with President George W. Bush while stressing differences over issues such as deficits and big government. While praising Bush's leadership, they condemned runaway government spending, rising debt and expanding bureaucracies -- which have grown under Bush and added to a flood of political difficulties that have sent his approval ratings plummeting.
Saturday 11 March
Former top Bush aide arrested for theft (02:29) - President Bush's Domestic Policy Advisor, who resigned last month with the standard "I want to spend more time with my family" excuse, is charged with trying to defraud two Washington stores in an elaborate refund scheme.
Norton quits (01:18) - Interior Secretary Gale Norton resigned Friday after five years of guiding the Bush administration's initiative to open government lands in the West to more oil and gas drilling, logging, grazing and commercial recreation....
Friday 10 March
Memo to George W. Bush: Your presidency is is serious trouble (07:27) - More and more people, particularly Republicans, disapprove of President Bush's performance, question his character and no longer consider him a strong leader against terrorism, according to an AP-Ipsos poll documenting one of the bleakest points of his presidency.
More problems for the 'wartime president' (07:20) - President Bush still faces bipartisan rancor in Congress over terrorism vulnerabilities at American ports even though an election-year veto battle over a Dubai-owned company's U.S. port plans has been defused.
The public relations war (07:09) - In the public-relations war, President Bush seems to have won one and lost one, dodging the bullet on the warrantless wiretapping issue while suffering a major defeat in the matter of outside control of U.S. ports.
Thursday 9 March
Americans fear government is too secretive (04:41) - Most Americans think the federal government operates with "too much secrecy" and overwhelmingly believe that public access to official records is critical to democracy, according to a Scripps Howard News Service poll.
Better late than never? (04:36) - It's rather late in the game for President Bush to get tough on federal spending, which has risen by nearly half on his watch, but the president, as promised, has proposed a useful approach -- the line-item veto. He has asked Congress for this authority before, but this time his proposal is in the form of specific legislation and it has the support, however sincerely or insincerely, of the Republican congressional leadership.
Abramoff says Bush is lying about not knowing him (03:24) - Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff says President Bush knew him well enough to joke with him about weightlifting. "What are you benching, buff guy?" Abramoff said Bush asked him. The president has said he doesn't know Abramoff. Abramoff said he finds...
Monday 6 March
Bush's plummenting polls (06:53) - February was not a good month for President Bush. Reminders of Hurricane Katrina, dissension by congressional Republicans and a bloody month in Iraq contributed to a new series of low poll numbers.
Bush wants even more power (06:36) - President George W. Bush will soon make a formal request to Congress for a line-item veto -- authority that would give him power to cancel specific spending items in budget bills, an administration official said on Sunday.
Sunday 5 March
Federal court secrecy up sharply on Bush's watch (08:07) - Despite the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of public trials, nearly all records are being kept secret for more than 5,000 defendants who completed their journey through the federal courts over the last three years. Instances of such secrecy more than doubled from 2003 to 2005.
Bush wants journalists prosecuted for publishing leaks (07:18) - Journalists who publish information from anonymous government sources could face prosecution under a new White House program aimed at stopping leaks about malfeasance in the Bush administration....
Saturday 4 March
CBO: Bush overestimates budget deficit (04:33) - The budget scorekeepers for Congress predict that if lawmakers adopt President Bush's budget, the deficit for the current year will fall short of the record figures projected by the administration.
Thursday 2 March
Videotape exposes our leaders' failures (20:13) - President Bush vowed, "We are fully prepared." Mike Brown barked orders. Weather experts warned of a killer storm. The behind-the-scenes drama, captured on videotape as Hurricane Katrina roared ashore, confirmed Americans' suspicions of government leaders: They can run a good meeting, but little else.
Videotape shows Bush lied about what White House knew before Hurricane Katrina struck (05:25) - A videotape of a conference call between the White House and emergency officials in Louisiana and Mississippi clearly catches President George W. Bush in a lie in his later claims that his administration didn't know about the dangers facing the Gulf Coast from Hurricana Katrina.
Wednesday 22 February
Law & Order actor works for Libby's defense fund (16:15) - Former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, best known now as the district attorney on NBC's popular Law & Order drama series, is working with the legal defense fund trying to raise $5 million or more to aid the indicted former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
White House blocked briefing on NSA spying (06:41) - A top intelligence official was prepared to brief the House of Representatives intelligence committee about President George W. Bush's domestic spying program last December but was stopped by White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, a leading House Democrat said on Tuesday.
Tuesday 21 February
Impeach George W. Bush (00:20) - Those blasphemously "liberal" media outlets have once again deprived the American public of widespread coverage of nothing less than startling poll results. The non-partisan polling firm Zogby International last month found that by a margin of 52 percent to 43 percent, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush "if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval." Well, there's no "if" about it anymore. The president approved warrantless wiretaps in 2002. Two years later, during a campaign appearance in Buffalo, N.Y. he volunteered he'd done nothing of the kind. That's called breaking the law and lying about it.
Sunday 19 February
Bush ordered Cheney to go public on shooting: Once again, we had it first (10:31) - Time magazine reports today that President George W. Bush "had to lean" on Vice President Dick Cheney to get him to go public about his shooting of a friend on a hunting trip last weekend. What Time didn't tell you is that we reported that first here on Capitol Hill Blue.
Fitzgerald: Libby has all he needs (07:34) - Granting a former White House aide's demands for classified documents to aid his defense in the CIA leak investigation would torpedo the case, the prosecutor is arguing.
Friday 17 February
Judge orders Bush to release info on domestic spying (05:41) - A federal judge ordered the Bush administration on Thursday to release documents about its warrantless surveillance program or spell out what it is withholding, a setback to efforts to keep the program under wraps.
Thursday 16 February
Forget the shooting: CIA leak is still Cheney's albatross (05:19) - It's not Dick Cheney's hunting mishap that worries Republicans. It's his other scandal -- the CIA leak case and the threat it poses to the embattled vice president.
Cheney: 'I have the power to declassify' secret info (05:15) - Vice President Dick Cheney brags that he has the power to declassify government secrets, raising the possibility that he authorized his former chief of staff to pass along sensitive prewar data on Iraq to reporters. And, in usual Cheney style, he makes no apologies for doing so.
Cheney tries damage control (04:05) - Calling it "one of the worst days of my life," Vice President Dick Cheney took responsibility for shooting a friend while hunting last weekend but defended his decision not to publicize the incident earlier. "You can't blame anybody else," Cheney said in a taped interview with Fox News Channel. "I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend. That's something I'll never forget."
Wednesday 15 February
Cheney needs to come clean (08:07) - It is time, Vice President Cheney, to walk up to the podium, stare America right in the eye, and admit you accidentally shot your hunting buddy while quail hunting in south Texas last weekend.
The Cheney factor (03:35) - At the start of the Bush presidency, Dick Cheney was viewed as the grown-up, the seasoned hand to guide an inexperienced president. Now, he's the center of controversy. His accidental shooting of a hunting companion and the administration's fumbles in getting out the word underscore the secrecy and near independence under which the vice president operates -- and it all sent the White House scrambling on Tuesday to find the right tone when the victim's condition took a turn for the worse.
Tuesday 14 February
Abramoff claimed close ties to Bush's political guru (06:10) - Three former associates of Jack Abramoff say the now-convicted lobbyist frequently told them he had strong ties to the White House through presidential confidant Karl Rove.
Texas authorities find Cheney at fault in shooting, cite him for failing to have valid hunting stamp (05:11) - Vice President Dick Cheney violated Texas hunting law by not having a valid hunting stamp on his license and has been given a warning citation by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department following Cheney's shooting of a fellow quail hunter Saturday on the private Armstrong Ranch in the south part of the state.
Monday 13 February
Agencies review classified material for possible use in Libby's trial (21:03) - Five government agencies are reviewing classified evidence that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby may want to use at his trial to fight perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges, according to a court transcript made public Monday.
Just one screwup after another (20:00) - The worse it gets for the Bush administration, the harder the executive branch seems to be stretching to make it even worse still. Last week produced some of the most stunning public-relations disasters on record for the Bush boys (as in, "good ol' "). And this speaks volumes for an administration that mishandled the Katrina response, prevaricated about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and has done its darnedest to run us into impossible debt.
Sunday 12 February
Bush's approval rating lands in the crapper (06:44) - President Bush's marks on overall job approval and for handling the economy are mired near their lowest levels despite a spike in consumer confidence over the past month, an AP-Ipsos poll found.
Saturday 11 February
Bush gets a dose of his own medicine (03:16) - The eavesdropping tables were turned on President Bush on Friday. The president apparently believed he was speaking privately when he talked about listening in without a warrant on domestic communications with suspected al-Qaida terrorists overseas. But reporters were the ones doing the listening in this time.
Brown: 'I warned White House about Katrina' (00:54) - Top White House officials were warned that Hurricane Katrina would be "our worst nightmare" the day the storm roared ashore, former federal disaster chief Michael Brown says.
Friday 10 February
Libby rats out his bosses (06:05) - Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff told a federal grand jury that his "superiors" told him to give secret information to reporters as part of the Bush administration's defense of intelligence used to justify invading Iraq and a concerted White House effort to discredit ambassador Joseph Wilson, a critic of the Iraq war decision. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said in documents filed last month that he plans to introduce evidence that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, disclosed to reporters the contents of a classified National Intelligence Estimate in the summer of 2003.
Wednesday 8 February
Cheney sticks to the script on spying program (00:34) - Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday ignored bipartisan concerns over the legality of President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program and spouted the standard administration line of "we have all the legal authority we need."...
Tuesday 7 February
Time to admit defeat on Social Security (05:22) - BY DAN K. THOMASSON Holy Methuselah, Mr. President, not another bipartisan commission to study the impact of aging baby boomers on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid!...
So much for tax reform (04:30) - By MARY DEIBEL President Bush wants Congress to make his tax cuts permanent law and to sweeten tax breaks for Health Savings Accounts....
Bush's budget bashed (03:38) - President Bush, constrained by wars, hurricanes and exploding budget deficits, has sent Congress a 2007 spending plan that is garnering howls of pain from farmers, teachers, doctors and a wide array of other groups with special interests....
Monday 6 February
Right wing says Bush sold them out (06:39) - Conservatives have long had doubts about whether or not George W. Bush is really one of them and the big government programs the President proposed in his State of the Union address have the shaking their heads and wondering what...
Sunday 5 February
Libby lied...a lot (11:14) - The special prosecutor in the CIA leak case alleged that Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff was engaged in a broader web of deception than was previously known and repeatedly lied to conceal that he had been a key...
Domestic spying provides GOP loyalty test (06:38) - Since George W. Bush became president, Republicans in Congress have nearly always marched in lock step with him. In large measure, their clout as lawmakers was enhanced by standing shoulder to shoulder with the president, the Los Angeles Times reports....
Bush's National Guard restructuring plan ain't flying (05:27) - By LIZ SIDOTI A Pentagon plan to restructure the Army National Guard has sparked bipartisan outcries in Congress even before President Bush's formal proposal, showing the clout of a force that draws members from communities across America....
Gonzales plans to play down domestic spying impact (04:37) - U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales plans to tell a Senate committee on Monday that President George W. Bush's warrantless domestic surveillance program is carefully targeted and "not a dragnet," Time magazine reported on its Web site on Saturday....
Misstatement of the Union (02:01) - President Bush left out a few facts and misstated some others in his State of the Union Address....
