George Bush

Washington memoirs are all about settling scores. Karl Rove’s “Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight” takes that tradition to new and self-parodying heights. To read Rove’s recollections of George W. Bush’s White House is to believe that, for eight years, men of “courage and moral clarity” governed the United States and were beset by critics who refused to give them any credit. On page after page, Rove names the naysayers and picks apart their claims. He’s most at ease — his delight jumps right off of the page — when he’s able to recount times he shoved the criticisms back in their faces.

U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton reportedly spoke at a Colorado Restaurant Association Political Action Committee meeting in Denver Thursday and told the audience that the country needs a “workable immigration system.” The comments spurred Tom Tancredo’s American Legacy Alliance to send out the kind of watchdog-style press release that seems to increasingly follow Norton speaking events, this time coming not from a Democratic Party organization but from a champion of the state’s grass roots right.

Michael “heck of a job Brownie” Brown, the generally accepted incompetent head of FEMA who fiddled as New Orleans drowned under Hurricane Katrina, appears to have amassed the perfect credentials to enter the Colorado right-wing radio talkosphere.

The Honorable Mark Langdale, President of the George W. Bush Foundation in Dallas, sent out a fundraising email today. He’s asking for donations. “Become a charter member.” It’s a tough letter to write. But Langdale and his crew do something remarkable: the letter and the homepage for the Center have a true Bushian flavor. You’ll [...]

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on “Face the Nation” Sunday that — like most Republicans and even some Democrats, including some in the president’s cabinet — he thinks President Obama was right when he said “we ought to go forward, not back.”
But then he went on to say, as Glenn Greenwald tweeted yesterday, that “I [...]

Only in Aspen, where liberal political bickering has been elevated to an art form, could a proposed day to honor cancer survivor and seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong devolve into name calling and too-cool-for-school disinterest.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder dispatched the U.S. Marshals Service to protect “appropriate people and facilities around the nation” in the wake of the killing Sunday morning of late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, Kan.
Likely top candidate for federal protection: Boulder physician Warren Hern, believed to be the last remaining doctor in the [...]

Colorado progeny Dana Perino — in the waning days of her latest stint as White House press secretary — admits it was tough speaking for President George W. Bush as his approval ratings tanked and his administration came under fire from both sides in a bruising presidential campaign. “I stopped reading blogs about me and [...]

Just days after hitting Colorado mailboxes with its first mailer criticizing John McCain’s positions on reproductive issues, NARAL Pro-Choice America sent a second flyer on Friday to Republican and unaffiliated women in Colorado. The flyer warned that the McCain-Palin ticket is “downright dangerous” for women. The abortion-rights group also pointed to a poll released Wednesday that shows the same Republican and unaffiliated women voters prefer Barack Obama 48-44 percent if they identify themselves as pro-choice.

Eight years ago they were Bush “Pioneers.” By the 2004 election, if they did really well, they rose to “Ranger” status. No matter the name, the top 548 political fundraisers for George W. Bush utilized a practice called “bundling” to funnel hundreds of thousands each to the presidential campaign — and in turn often received sweet political payouts.

Today, the practice, which revolutionized presidential politics, has been refined by both parties and is more rampant in this election cycle than any before.