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With President Obama's approval rating still deep underwater, a new survey from Fox News finds that Americans generally think George W. Bush ran a more "competent" administration. In the survey, a 48 percent plurality said Bush's White House was more competent, while 42 percent picked Obama's. At the same time, fully two-thirds of Americans said Bill Clinton's administration was more competent than Obama's, versus only 18 percent who liked Obama's better. - - Jon Terbush

When Michael Hastings was killed in a single-car crash in Los Angeles at age 33 last June, journalism lost a rare specimen of the breed it needs most: a reporter who doesn’t care whom he pisses off. Hastings was the hothead whose 2010 Rolling Stone article “The Runaway General” led to the dismissal of the Afghanistan commander, General Stanley McChrystal, for the infraction of trash-talking his civilian bosses. Hastings, too, was pilloried after the piece—by his own journalistic peers, in a manner that would prefigure some of the profession’s more recent hostility toward Glenn Greenwald. “Michael Hastings has never served...

She’s said many times that she has no intention of running, going so far as to co-sign a letter beseeching Her Majesty, Queen Hillary, to take her rightful place upon the throne in 2016. But would-be candidates say lots of things early in the cycle. Remember when Obama said, a few months after being elected to the Senate, that he wouldn’t run for president in 2008 because he was a big believer in knowing what you’re doing when you apply for a job? Two years later, he decided he knew what he was doing after all. And that’s how we...

Even the pundits at CNN had to agree – President Obama’s reception at West Point was nothing short of “icy.” His graduation speech has been slammed as being less “Commander in Chief” and more “policy wonk playing defense.” And the way the audience reacted supports it. He receives a standing ovation from about a fourth of the audience who has come to see the the West Point class of 2014 graduate and commission as 2nd Lieutenants, and throughout his speech, he receives only mild applause from the graduates and their friends and families. Compare that to the speech President George...

OK, I admit that I made up the above headline. But, if Nancy Pelosi can blame the VA scandal on George Bush, why can’t I accuse him of shooting JFK? No evidence? Well, if such accusations must be supported by facts, Pelosi would do well to stop braying about Bush. If you compare his actual record on the VA to that of alleged President Obama, the latter will not thank you for it. As is the case with income inequality, fighting HIV/AIDS and countless other issues, Bush has a better record on the VA than does his feckless successor. Sadly,...

One day ‘till Memorial Day - the day set aside for us to honor the memory of the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces - and Nancy Pelosi is still focused on blaming George W. Bush for the phony VA scandal. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., repeatedly put the blame for the Veterans Affairs scandal on former President George W. Bush, George W. Bush, leads a Wounded Warrior Ride, 2012while arguing that her party has worked hard for veterans in recent years. Pelosi took a shot at Bush President Bush serves Thanksgiving...

Mike Pence spoke at AEI yesterday in defense of his Medicaid expansion in Indiana. His position has been roundly denounced by most conservative and libertarian policy analysts – for a rare defense, read Grace-Marie Turner here, but even her praise is qualified the deeper you go. Most of the critiques of Pence have focused on the politics of the issue assuming the waiver moves forward, but after seeing his presentation yesterday and talking to him at a session following the event, I have my doubts that this waiver will even go through. The request comes following a year of...

This fathead serial prankster just can’t help himself, getting up inside a sheer outer layer of actress America Ferrera’s dress Friday at Cannes, leaving her shocked and stunned. The “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” star, 30, looked glamorous while posing in front of a sea of photographers with her “How to Train Your Dragon 2” co-stars when journo Vitalii Sediuk dived onto the red carpet and weaseled his head under her puffy white ball gown. A freaked-out Ferrera and “Dragon” co-stars Cate Blanchett and Kit Harington looked appalled as ­security guards grabbed him and hauled him away. Sediuk is notorious...

Six months: that’s how long Democrats have to talk about inequality in America with conviction and, for whatever it’s worth in politics, consistency. Six months from now marks the midterm elections, the unofficial start of the 2016 presidential campaign and Hillary Clinton’s long-delayed ride to inevitability. What does Hillary Clinton have to do with inequality in America? She’s no robber baron, of course. But the core case against inequality isn’t about resentment of wealth—it’s about the ways in which the concentration of wealth is making politics increasingly pointless, a game of access and not arguments. Anyone who fears that future...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Wednesday that he is thinking about running for president and that by the time 2016 arrives the controversy over last year’s George Washington Bridge lane closures “will be a footnote.” Christie told a conference in Washington that after months of investigation “there hasn’t been one suggestion that I knew anything about” orders from staff aides to close access lanes that caused traffic snarls in Fort Lee. When asked by CBS’ Bob Schieffer if he’s thinking of running for president and when he’ll make a decision, Christie said: “Yes, and later.”

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said he would strive to be like Lyndon Johnson, the Democrat famous for expanding the U.S. welfare state through the "Great Society," if he were elected president. According to the Miami Herald, Bush made those comments Wednesday night in San Antonio, Florida at Saint Leo University, while speaking about education, immigration, and energy policy. Bush did not address Johnson's Great Society and War on Poverty programs, about which Ronald Reagan once famously quipped, "We had a war on poverty, and poverty won."

Political analysts called it the ''Giuliani factor,'' and in November they cited it as a chief reason Michael R. Bloomberg, a rich businessman with no experience in elective office, pulled off a stunning upset to become mayor of New York City. Yesterday political analysts were again mulling the Giuliani factor, this time to help explain how Bill Simon Jr., a rich businessman with no experience in elective office, pulled off a stunning upset to win the Republican nomination for governor of California. Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and the man whom the national Republican Party intends...

The biggest problem facing Jeb Bush as he contemplates whether to become a Republican presidential contender is how will it affect his beloved family, especially his wife, Columba. The former Florida governor’s devoted Mexican-born wife intensely dislikes being in the public eye, while his daughter Noelle has struggled with drugs in the past, The Washington Post reported. Earlier this year, Bush was criticized by conservatives for his comments about illegal immigrants coming to America as an "act of love" for their families. Ironically, Bush has some strong misgivings about running for the highest office out of an "act of love"...

We’re going to cruise right past the 2014 election, which I don’t believe is going to make much of a difference in the national balance of power, such as it is, to the main event: The 2016 election and the Grand Illusion that the Republican Party will try to pull off again in its uphill fight to reclaim the presidency. That task is not terribly different than it was in 2012 when the GOP, which had lurched far to the right and away from the electoral mainstream on a host of issues in the preceding years, held its collective nose...

Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio said Monday he is “nudging” former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to run for the Republican nomination to be president. Though he stopped short of endorsing anyone early in the process, Boehner named Bush, son of President George H. W. Bush and brother of President George W. Bush, as a favorite. “We’ve got a lot of good candidates out there. If you look historically, our best candidates have come from the ranks of governors, of former governors, and yes, Jeb Bush is my friend, I think he’d make a great president, and I’ve been nudging...

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel gave his support to embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki on Sunday as he has come under scrutiny over allegations of deadly delays in health care treatment for veterans. While Hagel said accountability was paramount, the potential for a backlog treating returning veterans should have been seen. “I don’t think it just started with General Shinseki’s term at the VA, this is something that should have been looked at years and years ago, so yes, we missed it,” Hagel said on ABC “This Week.”Shinseki will testify next Thursday before the Senate Committee on Veteran’s Affairs. Former...

It’s Friday again. Already. And because we’re all weary of the week’s *wretch-ed* news we’re going to do something different today. Since I was unable to attend the Second Annual Friends of MOTUS Flyover Fest ™(FFF) in Galveston last month, they sent me a commemorative goodie bag just like the one given to all the lucky attendees. My bag finally arrived (compliments of the US Postal service) so I’m taking the opportunity to catalogue all the swag contained therein.First (and long gone), RobinH made professional, homemade sugar cookies shaped like sandcastles, complete with a flag flying atop! At first I...

"The influx of Democratic-friendly Hispanics and broader Democratic gains among Hispanics combined to flip Florida’s Hispanic vote."

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Republican National Committee wants to take more control over how the party picks a White House nominee. The RNC was to meet Wednesday in Memphis, Tennessee, to choose members who will effectively set the calendar for 2016's long list of potential presidential contenders. If the party's chairman, Reince Priebus gets his way, the GOP will pick its nominee more quickly than during past contests and have fewer debates in which candidates could criticize each other. The RNC also was expected to put penalties in place for candidates who don't follow the committee's plans.

Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (D) said Tuesday that a “big reason” why he left the Republican Party was because many in the GOP were hostile to President Obama due to his race. Crist, who is running for his old office against Gov. Rick Scott (R), said in an interview with Fusion’s Jorge Ramos that he felt uncomfortable with his previous party affiliation. Republicans are perceived as “anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-minority, [and] anti-gay,” he said, and they refuse to compromise with Obama. The ex-governor said he feels, “liberated as a Democrat.” “I couldn’t be consistent with myself and my core beliefs,...