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Jules Witcover
Jules Witcover: Barack Obama abroad
- For all the advance consternation about the political risks that Barack Obama faced in going to Afghanistan and Iraq, his Middle East visit was a no-brainer from the start.
Jules Witcover: Gore shines from the shadows
- These could be very trying times for former Vice President Al Gore, even as he continues to grab national attention with a new call to achieve freedom from the oil dependence that strangles America’s economy and foreign policy.
Jules Witcover: New Middle East priority
- For more than five years now, President Bush has brushed aside criticism that his invasion of Iraq was an unwise and unnecessary diversion from the legitimate war against terrorism in Afghanistan.
Jules Witcover: The surrogate problem again
- The wit who first said “With friends like these, who needs enemies?” captured the downside of political surrogates, those folks who in trying to be helpful too often only make things worse for their candidates.
Jules Witcover: Vice President Jim Webb?
- T he political adage, “Would that my opponent would write a book,” is a commentary on the risk that any public figure takes in putting his or her life story, or any part of it, in print. Though most such efforts are patently self-serving, they often can be revealing in detrimental ways.
Jules Witcover: Democratic failure on ending the war
- When the Democrats won control of Congress in the 2006 congressional elections, they took the outcome as a mandate to end American involvement in the war in Iraq. But in the nearly two years since that supposed mandate, they have been thoroughly stymied.
Jules Witcover: Tarnishing a clean slate
- On the most basic political level, Barack Obama’s decision to turn down the $84 million federal campaign subsidy in favor of raising unlimited money on his own can be answered with one simple question: What would John McCain do if the tables were turned?
Jules Witcover: Sen. McCain’s debate gambit
- By exchanging views in his folksy manner with “my friends,” John McCain traveled a surprisingly easy path toward the Republican nomination this year.
Jules Witcover: Don’t forget the war
- As gas prices climb above $4 a gallon, home foreclosures mount, the jobless rate creeps up and the value of the dollar falls in the global market, the polls say more Americans are now concerned about their pocketbooks than about the war in Iraq.
Jules Witcover: RFK 40 years later
- The 40th anniversary of the death of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy has come at a time many Americans see in the nomination of Sen. Barack Obama a revival of RFK’s charismatic call to service as a presidential candidate in 1968.
Jules Witcover: Bush’s potentially impeachable offense
- Most headlines about former presidential press secretary Scott McClellan’s juicy inside account of the George W. Bush White House have focused on how the president and his chief aides used deception to sell the American people on his invasion of Iraq. It’s pretty damning stuff, triggering wails of betrayal and denial from old colleagues.
Jules Witcover: Ted Kennedy’s two families
- As Sen. Ted Kennedy faces his latest health challenge, the outpouring of well wishes from Democrats and Republicans alike is testimony to the unique position he holds in the U.S. Senate and among the American public at large.
Jules Witcover: Glimpses of the future
- Thanks to John McCain and the House Democrats, voters got a couple of advance peeks the other day at what American policies might be starting next January, depending on the election results for president and Congress in November.