George W. Bush
April 28, 2026 — Scott Johnson
The Washington Free Beacon’s Ira Stoll treats Wendy Sherman’s deep thoughts on Iran in his biting column “Obama-Biden Iran Negotiator Says Trump Doesn’t Have Enough Experts, Bemoans ‘Genocide.’” Sherman of course served as the Obama administration State Departmet official who led the negotiations with Iran resulting in the 2015 giveaway known as the JCPOA. Sherman thought her background in social work perfectly prepared her for the job. The JCPOA that
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November 21, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Dick Cheney’s funeral was yesterday, in Washington. Cheney was a fine man and an excellent public servant. His politics were moderate, but while he was vice president, and for years afterward, he was denounced by liberals as a fascist and commonly referred to as “Darth Vader.” Of course, he served under BushHitler, so that was only natural. His funeral told a different story. It was attended, by invitation, by Kamala
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November 8, 2025 — Scott Johnson
II. Rathergate We arrive at Rathergate in 2004. I’m guessing you all know the story from my end. On September 8 CBS News broadcast the story “For The Record” seeking to impugn President Bush’s National Guard service based on memos allegedly from the personal file of President Bush’s commanding officer. Thinking there might be more to the story, I wrote about the segment the following morning in a post I
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May 26, 2025 — Scott Johnson
A few readers seem to think I aspired to write a history of Power Line in “Looking back at 23 years” and charged me with omitting Paul Mirengoff and Steve Hayward from my account. However, to borrow John Updike’s adjective, my post was memoiristic in nature. I was recalling my experiences, my reporting, my interests, my favorite posts, all as manifested on the site over the years. Paul and Steve,
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September 11, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Dick Cheney has joined his daughter Liz in backing Kamala Harris for president. George W. Bush hasn’t gone quite so far; he is remaining neutral. And Mitt Romney effusively praised Harris’s debate performance, although to my knowledge he hasn’t actually endorsed her yet. John McCain is no longer with us, but if he were still living it is easy to imagine him backing Harris or, at best, staying neutral like
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April 30, 2024 — Scott Johnson
I am warming up to watch the documentary Rather, celebrating the career of the disgraced former CBS News anchor. It is to be aired this coming Wednesday on Netflix. Apparently having access to a screener for media critics, the Star Tribune’s Neal Justin found the documentary to be wanting (“when it comes to the stumbles, like walking off the set when a tennis match went long, the legendary broadcaster goes
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November 13, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Peggy Noonan’s weekly Wall Street Journal column dated November 2 dispensed advice for Israel in its current fight for survival. Noonan advised Israel not to fight. I criticized the column for its stupidity yesterday. I can’t say it’s the most stupid column of the past 25 years, but it must be tied with others for that distinction. While patently stupid, the column reeks of Noonan’s precious self-regard. She relishes every
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October 1, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll has noticed W GONE DAFT. You know who she’s talking about. She writes. First of all, I want to thank every single person who comforted me last week with such kind words on the loss of my father. It meant more than you will ever know. I had been busy with the anticipation of that event for weeks and missed some important issues. To wit: Every conservative commenter
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March 19, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Marc Thiessen argues that the Wuhan coronavirus “should be forever linked to [China], the regime that facilitated its spread.” He’s right. I’ll let him explain: We are in the midst of a pandemic lockdown today because the Chinese Communist regime cared more about suppressing information than suppressing a virus. Doctors in Wuhan knew in December that the coronavirus was capable of human-to-human transmission because medical workers were getting sick. But
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March 10, 2019 — John Hinderaker
I am currently reading Andrew Roberts’ biography of Winston Churchill. So I followed, with interest, the link that someone (probably Scott) put up as a Power Line Pick to this piece by Roberts in the Spectator about his book tour in America. His theme is that Americans, in general, esteem Churchill now more than ever. Which is a good thing. I want to comment on a single paragraph in Roberts’
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January 14, 2019 — Scott Johnson
William Campenni spent 33 years in the Air Force/Air National Guard. He served as a pilot alongside then Lieutenant Bush in the the Texas Air National Guard in the early 1970’s and has frequently commented on factual issues related to the Rathergate story, as he does in the new Fox Nation documentary “Black Eye: Dan Rather and the Birth of Fake News.” These are his comments on the documentary: Kudos
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January 13, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Below is a one-minute preview of the new Fox Nation documentary Black Eye: Dan Rather and the Birth of Fake News (courtesy of the producers, with a little technical help from Joe Malchow). The preview features our role in the Rathergate story. I thought readers might find it of interest and perhaps want to follow up with a look at the whole thing. I reviewed the documentary in “My eye
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January 9, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Tomorrow the new FOX News online operation called Fox Nation will debut the documentary Black Eye: Dan Rather and the Birth of Fake News. John and I sat for the first interview that the producers conducted for the program. They made a house call on us in the Twin Cities this past August to ask about our role in the chain of events that led to the undoing of Dan
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March 24, 2018 — Scott Johnson
I want to note the death yesterday of former Georgia Governor and United States Senator Zell Miller. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution looks back on his life in “Zell Miller dies at 86.” I didn’t know much about Miller before his appointment as Senator in 2000 following the untimely death of Paul Coverdell that year, but I came to admire him greatly. Initially attracted by the authentic wit and literacy I found
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October 23, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Paul (and many many others) others have commented on former President George W. Bush’s recent speech that many, many others took as a thinly-veiled attack on President Trump. However, Power Line has obtained a confidential memo from inside the Bush Family High Command that blows the lid off the Deep State conspiracy to secure the political future of the Bush family, and the whole Bush house of cards could well
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October 22, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Last week, George W. Bush delivered an address decrying the rise of nativism, bigotry, and incivility in recent years. The former president did not mention the current one by name, but it is clear that he had Donald Trump mind. Whether Bush blames Trump for the rise of all three phenomena — nativism, bigotry, and incivility — is less certain. I suspect he does. Construing Bush’s speech as an across-the-board
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August 24, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The tension mounts as we approach the official September 12 publication date of Madam Hillary’s forthcoming campaign memoir, What Happened?. Clinton released what is billed as an exclusive excerpt or two to her friends at MSNBC, where commentators’ eyes were moist with tears of rage on election night. [jwplayer file=”https://youtu.be/6g_iNHSITi4″] Reading the excerpts, Clinton reveals that she was unnerved by Trump’s proximity to her during their October 9 debate at
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