Entries for April 2009

By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

It was January of 1995, and I was pregnant with our oldest daughter, working as a speechwriter at the Republican National Committee. My assignment was to help New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman write the first State of the Union response ever delivered outside of Washington, D.C.—she was going to speak from the state capitol in Trenton. More importantly, it was the first time in American history that a woman would deliver the response. Here's what she said to the nation in the wake of Republicans taking control of the House for the first time in 40 years:

By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Too much, too fast. That's my take on President Obama's first hundred days in office, and it's pretty much the opinion of everyone I've talked to lately. People agree and disagree with the merits of his proposals, and that's fine. But almost to a person, I'm hearing that the speed at which Obama is moving—and spending trillions—is concerning to people.

By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

As time goes on, George and Barbara Bush are becoming more and more beloved. One of my favorite writers and a fellow Bush #41 speechwriter, Christopher Buckley, proves it by adopting them as his parents (unofficially). The rest of us are jealous that we didn't think of it first.

By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

On Meet the Press this Sunday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration is weighing whether to release additional CIA memos from the Bush era on "enhanced interrogation." Similarly, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Defense Department will soon be releasing an additional 21 photos showing instances of alleged prisoner abuse at U.S. military facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What possible good can come from this?

By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Bill Maher, following behind Janeane Garofalo and Robert Shrum earlier this week, continues the left's angry diatribe against the tea party protests in today's L.A. Times. His column is one big, ugly, name-calling screed, moving past the tax day protests to call all Republicans "a socially awkward group of mostly white people who speak a language only they understand. Like Trekkies, but paranoid." Here's the most offensive part:

By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

When you look at all the information that's come out about "enhanced interrogation" over the last week or so, a couple of things strike you. First, that there was a lot of time and energy spent by a lot of professionals—from Justice lawyers to CIA officials to State Department leadership to military doctors—on this issue. This was not a seat-of-the-pants operation by a bunch of freelancers. Years of memos and meetings took place on waterboarding, and there's quite a paper trail. Second, it's clear from that paper trail that honest men and women can disagree. There's just a lot of gray and I think the Bush administration was honestly trying to figure out where the line should be. Rich Lowry put it well: "As a realist, I think those kind of tough calls in murky areas are inevitable in foreign affairs, and especially in a shadowy war against lawless extremists. Sometimes there are no good or easy answers."

By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

A look back at—until now—the darkest hours at the CIA, from the only CIA director in American history to also serve as U.S. president. The situation was very similar to today's headlines: Congress held hearings into alleged illegal actions by career CIA agents, and the new head of the CIA, who was a former congressman himself, faced a broken and demoralized agency and public outrage.

Here's President Bush #41 on the 1975 congressional hearings known as the Church Committee hearings, when the CIA was under fire for alleged assassination attempts against Fidel Castro: