John McCain wants to be Bush so bad that he is now hiring all his people: Ken Mehlman, who ran Bush’s 2004 campaign, is now serving as an unpaid, outside adviser to the Arizona Republican. Karl Rove, the president’s top political hand since his Texas days, recently gave money to McCain and soon after had […]
They really are jumping ship: Dan Bartlett, a key member of President George W. Bush’s inner circle and an aide for him going back more than 13 years, announced on Friday he is resigning as White House counselor effective July 4. In an interview, Bartlett, who turned 36 on Friday, said he had been pondering […]
There are other stories that the media has just totally ignored: David Addington, chief legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, says he was taken aback when the White House started making public pronouncements about the CIA leak investigation. In the fall of 2003, President Bush’s press secretary was categorically denying that either Karl Rove […]
The Libby leak trial is really getting to be fun now: White House anxiety is mounting over the prospect that top officials-including deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and counselor Dan Bartlett-may be forced to provide potentially awkward testimony in the perjury and obstruction trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby. Both Rove and Bartlett have already […]
The entire Foley scandal has removed the cover from a party has serious skeletons. Far more disturbing is the downplaying of the incident by others in the Republican Party, all the way up to the White House. Today Tony Snow, while discussing the incident with CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, referred to the emails as simply “naughty”. […]
Think Progress has an interesting post up about the White House staffers getting a raise while at the same time opposing an increase on the minimum wage: This year the highest paid staffers in the White House – including Karl Rove, Dan Bartlett and Steven Hadley – got a cost-of-living adjustment of $4,200, boosting their […]
The last few days it seems all we have heard about is Bush’s big meeting at Camp David. Yesterday the New York Times put a little perspective on what is going on there. President Bush gathered top aides at Camp David here on Monday to calibrate the best way forward in Iraq during what the […]
While watching CNN this morning, I was (un)fortunate enough to watch an interview with Dan Bartlett, the White House Chief Propagandist and Spinmeister Communications Director, whose primary responsibility seems to be parroting Administration talking points while wearing a beatific smile and knowingly denigrating the intentions of Democrats. Bartlett seemed intent on focusing on talk of […]