Informed Speculation

Michael Barone goes deep -very deep – into the Rudy/Hillary matchup, and comes up with this conclusion: Rudy’s electoral vote position against Hillary is much stronger than Bush’s against Kerry. Rudy puts almost the whole East into play and is significantly stronger in several target states in the Midwest and West. Hillary puts some states [...]

If you just want an interesting weekend read, check this out…

It’s been a topsy-turvy year for my Red Raiders on the basketball court: inconsistent play, only a .500 conference record, and too many losses at home have made the Big Dance less than a sure thing. There have been many great moments, too, though – three wins over top ten teams (Kansas once, and Texas A&M, [...]

…you can almost always count on Mickey Kaus to cut through the…poop.  Here’s Kaus on the pro-Hillary spin coming out of the recent spat with Obama: No Nagourney “I’ve Been Spun” piece would be complete without a quote from notorious Dem counterproductive overspinner Chris Lehane, whose tendentious 24-7 BS sniping as Al Gore’s 2000 press [...]

An old friend of this blog’s, Patrick Ruffini, has got himself a column at Townhall, and his first installment looks at the surge: A gloomy haze has settled over the nation’s prosecution of the War on Terror as of late. It seems like we can only watch helplessly as Nancy Pelosi and Jack Murtha size [...]

Mitch McConnell, who has been simply superb in blocking Democratic anti-war measures in the Senate, tells Harry Reid he’s ready for round three: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned yesterday that a new Democratic effort to repeal the 2002 Iraq war resolution would meet the same fate as two previous efforts to limit President [...]

Another good poll for Giuliani: In a match-up between the early 2008 frontrunners, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) leads New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) 52% to 43%. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Giuliani’s lead growing in recent months. His current nine-point advantage is up from a six point [...]

I said the latest spate of ‘Lieberman going GOP’ stories were much ado about nothing yesterday, and today Senator Lieberman used the exact same words to deny them – almost: U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman rejected speculation Friday that he would join the Republican Party, calling the notion “much ado about nothing.” Lieberman, I-Conn., told Time [...]

I know some of my regulars defend the snivelling, deceitful ways the Democrats are approaching their goal (leaving Iraq, now) by saying, in a nutshell, well, the mean ol’ Republicans will hammer them if they’re honest about their intentions. Yet the plain fact is it’s not working.  No one is fooled, not even other Democrats, and [...]

The ex-Iowa governor says he’s just not able to raise the necessary cash: Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack said Friday he is pulling out of the 2008 Democratic race for president, citing financial difficulties in a campaign that lasted 15 weeks. Vilsack, 56, said he would have continued if it weren’t for the large amounts [...]

This is good news: North Korea appears ready to abandon the source of its weapons-grade plutonium but there is a still a long way to go before Pyongyang scraps its entire nuclear arms program, a top South Korean nuclear envoy said on Friday. In a breakthrough deal, impoverished North Korea agreed earlier this month at [...]

Will this be the day that Scooter meets his fate, or dances a jig down the aisle of the courtroom? Who knows?…But while we wait, Tom Maguire (who, incidentally, thinks Libby will be convicted and then subsequently pardoned without serving a day) notes a true rarity: the New York Times acknowledging a mistake (kind of )…

It appears ‘slow-bleed’ may be out, in favor of ‘we really didn’t mean it’: Senate Democratic leaders intend to unveil a plan next week to repeal the 2002 resolution authorizing the war in Iraq in favor of narrower authority that restricts the military’s role and begins withdrawals of combat troops. House Democrats have pulled back [...]

I suspect George W. Bush, perhaps angered by the use of the appellation “Chimpy” by progressive bloggers, is behind this: Chimpanzees living in the West African savannah have been observed fashioning deadly spears from sticks and using the hand-crafted tools to hunt small mammals — the first routine production of deadly weapons ever observed in [...]

Or much ado about nothing? Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut told the Politico on Thursday that he has no immediate plans to switch parties but suggested that Democratic opposition to funding the war in Iraq might change his mind. Lieberman, a self-styled independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has been among the strongest supporters of [...]

We all know there have been some highly publicized car bombings, and of course, the horrible introduction of chlorine gas (I’m glad to see one source of this has been discovered, though of course there are probably more), but what’s the big picture? StrategyPage takes a look: At least a hundred, of the six million [...]

It didn’t take a genius to see that Russia and the E.U. would be falling all over themselves to find ways to weasel out of the Palestinian boycott, despite the fact that the unity government still doesn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist, a supposed precondition to such a lifting: Fractures between the United States and Europe [...]

It’s nothing that hasn’t been said here, but it’s said well, so let’s turn to George Will: Regarding Iraq, the Democratic-controlled Congress could do what Democrats say a Democratic president would do: withdraw U.S. forces. A president could simply order that; Congress could defund military operations in Iraq. Congressional Democrats are, however, afraid to do [...]

So says John Dickerson in Slate, regarding the much-ballyhooed kerfuffle over comments by Obama supporter David Geffen: Let’s say you’re Barack Obama, and you’re building your campaign around a new, high-minded brand of politics, but then your rival takes a swipe at you. What do you do? A candidate who lets his opponent define him [...]

…a verdict may come down in the Scooter Libby trial.  As always, keep your eyes peeled for Tom Maguire, who has owned this story from day one…