By: Matt Hackett
“I know how the world works. I know the difference between good and evil.”
–John McCain

McCain’s acceptance speech was an odd mix of boring, albeit light, policy talk and feverous battle cries. Billing themselves as the real campaign of change and reform, McCain and Palin chided democrats and republicans alike for allowing corruption and pork-barrel spending to get the better of them. Read more »

By: Brad Girard

Just two days after Labor Day and it has already gotten cold. Sarah Palin’s speech to the RNC last night appears to have set the tone for the rest of the campaign. Forget Clinton supporters, forget appealing to the independents, this race is now about exciting the base. For as unorganized as the McCain camp has been, they seem to have found a hope for this race, and oddly enough, it’s Sarah Palin. Read more »

By: Matt Hackett
As is to be expected, pundits darted for the first word in the immediate wake of both Obama and McCain’s vice presidential picks. Conservative commentators disingenuously remarked that Joseph Biden’s tenure in the senate further exposes Obama’s own rookie status, while some liberal reporters quipped that Palin is more suited for a role in the 90’s sitcom “North Exposure” than in a presidential administration. Read more »

By: Brad Girard

Friday’s rollout of Vice-Presidential pick Sarah Palin sent jaws to the floor. The Obama camp had already prepared responses for both Romney and Pawlenty picks, but it wasn’t just the Democrats that were thrown for a loop. McCain’s choice is his boldest political move in years, and a gamble of this magnitude could provide an enormous pay off, or prove to be disastrous. Read more »

By: Brad Girard

There is no doubt about it. Vladimir Putin is a thug. The Russian government has argued, as did Mikhail Gorbachev in a New York Times op-ed last week, that the “Russians never wanted a war.” They insist that they are fulfilling the duties of peace keeping and merely defending the innocents in South Ossetia from a savage Georgian attack. Read more »

By: Matt Hackett

Frank Rich recently pointed out that McCain, not Obama, is actually the candidate that we still do not know. A war hero and long-time media fascination, McCain is not only a “maverick,” he is like a (great) uncle to many. Recently many (like Rich) have documented McCain’s flip flops, lies and hypocrisies. Others have posed the question: “is McCain a neoconservative?”
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By: Brad Girard

It is no secret that in the last seven years the Department of Justice has been used to strengthen the agenda of the Bush Administration. In early 2002 Alberto Gonzales, then legal counsel for President Bush, concluded that ‘enemy combatants’ of the US were not legally entitled to POW status, and thereby not protected by the Geneva Conventions. Read more »

By: Matt Hackett

The conditions on the ground have improved in Iraq. The phrase “conditions on the ground” has been used ad nauseum in the press over the last couple of months, though its precise meaning remains unclear. Read more »