Republican presidential candidate John McCain said a while back that U.S. troops should have a presence in Iraq until they finish their mission — even if it takes up to ” a hundred years or a thousand years or 10,000 years.”

The liberal online activist group MoveOn.org is now taking that figurative statement and applying it literally to attack McCain. “A hundred years in Iraq — and you thought no one could be worse than George Bush,” MoveOn says in a new advertisement.

Categories: Iraq, John McCain, AdWatch

Reporters Grill Bush On Economy, War

April 29, 2008, 9:05pm

President Bush today tackled an array of subjects in a press conference with reporters.

The topics included: the state of the U.S. economy, including high energy and food prices; the progress of military operations in Afghanistan; the plans for extra spending on the war in Iraq; presidential relations with Congress; the decision by former President Jimmy Carter to meet with leaders of the terrorist group Hamas; and Bush’s expectations of how the next president will approach the war on terror.

Categories: Podcast of the Week, Military, Iraq, White House, Terrorism, Presidency 2008, 110th Congress, Energy, Economy, Foreign Affairs

A Senate Republican committee leader today blamed an ongoing global food crisis on “decades of misguided environmental and energy policies.”

James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said worldwide access to food is declining and prices are skyrocketing because of meddling politicians bureaucrats in Washington who have been afraid of expanding energy supplies.

Current policy that has led to the consumption of more corn as ethanol-based fuel rather than as food “has skewed common sense and has violated the principles of a sound energy policy,” Inhofe said on the Senate floor.

He urged Congress to revisit its December 2007 biofuel mandate and admit that it made a mistake by implementing it, and he said the Environmental Protection Agency should review its statutory options to relieve the impact of the mandate.

Categories: Oklahoma, James Inhofe, Agriculture, Environment, Energy, Foreign Affairs

Sen. Evan Bayh, a Democrat, criticized the Supreme Court for its Monday decision to uphold a voter-identification law in Bayh’s home state of Indiana.

The law requires voters to present photo identification at their polling places. Bayh told PBS talk-show host Tavis Smiley that the requirement, which the court supported on a 6-3 vote, will disenfranchise too many minority, disabled and elderly voters.

Bayh rejected the notion that the law is necessary for security reasons. “[I]n the absence of voter fraud, I just don’t see the reasoning for this,” he said.

Categories: Indiana, Producer's Picks, Evan Bayh, Civil Liberties, Government Reform, Courts, Voting Rights

President Bush spoke at the “America’s Small Business Summit” hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on April 18, and the chamber today posted a series of videos of the event to YouTube. Here are Bush’s thoughts about the U.S. economy and the economic stimulus package enacted earlier this year:

The president also discussed: trade policy and the Trade Adjustment Assistance program for people who lose jobs as a result of trade deals; business incentives; and America’s entrepreneurial spirit.

Bush also thanked small-business owners for being “dreamers and doers.”

Categories: White House, Labor, Economy, Trade