The term "bully pulpit" stems from President Theodore Roosevelt's reference to the White House as a "bully pulpit," meaning a terrific platform from which to persuasively advocate an agenda. Roosevelt often used the word "bully" as an adjective meaning superb/wonderful.
The Bully Pulpit features news, reasoned discourse, opinion and some humor.
The Texas governor ran an awful campaign in 2012. But his platform is now belatedly being embraced by party leaders.
(By Michael Catalini, National Journal) - Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s 2012 presidential campaign was a slow-motion train wreck, capped off by his embarrassing brain freeze in a nationally televised debate. But as Perry mulls another presidential race in 2016, it’s striking that he was campaigning on many of the reforms that Republican Party leaders are now desperately pushing.
Republicans have spent the past several months figuring out how to win over more Hispanic voters, moderating their tone on immigration, pitching education reform as a significant issue, and they have reaped the political benefits of challenging President Obama on balancing budgets and reforming entitlements. On all those counts, Perry was a candidate ahead of his time.
(By Tony Lee, Breitbart Sports) - Former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin blasted NASCAR commentator Michael Waltrip on Wednesday for mocking her during last Sunday's NASCAR telecast on Fox for words Palin never said or have been associated with her. After Palin re-tweeted the Breitbart Sports article that described the incident, she tweeted to Waltrip, "Get some 'strategery' and check your facts before you shoot off your mouth." Palin re-tweeted the Breitbart Sports article that described the incident she referenced.
(By Larry O'Connor, Big Government) - John McCain may have finally lost it. In an interview with Huffington Post he referred to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as "wacko birds."
“They were elected, nobody believes that there was a corrupt election, anything else,” McCain said. “But I also think that when, you know, it’s always the wacko birds on right and left that get the media megaphone."
Asked to clarify, McCain said he was referencing ”Rand Paul, Cruz, Amash, whoever.”
(By Tony Lee, Breitbart Sports) - Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) accused NASCAR of siding against the families of Newtown, Connecticut by allowing the National Rifle Association (NRA) to sponsor a NASCAR race at the Texas Motor Speedway in April. That race will be called the NRA 500.
Leaked email reveals shadowy liberal network in Tarheel State
(By Andrew Evans, Washington Free Beacon) - A nonprofit organization in North Carolina funded by progressive mega-donor George Soros has been linked to a partisan strategy memo aimed at derailing the state Republican leadership’s legislative agenda, throwing light on the shadowy network of liberal groups that operate in the state.
(By Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post) - “The worst-case scenario for us,” a leading anti-budget-cuts lobbyist told The Post, “is the sequester hits and nothing bad really happens.”
Think about that. Worst case? That a government drowning in debt should cut back by 2.2 percent — and the country survives. That a government now borrowing 35 cents of every dollar it spends reduces that borrowing by two cents “and nothing bad really happens.” Oh, the humanity!
A normal citizen might think this a good thing. For reactionary liberalism, however, whatever sum our ever-inflating government happens to spend today (now double what Bill Clinton spent in his last year) is the Platonic ideal — the reduction of which, however minuscule, is a national calamity.
Or damn well should be. Otherwise, people might get the idea that we can shrink government and live on.
(By Patrick Caddell, FoxNews.com) - It is not without a bit of irony that, in the 40 years since the explosion of the Watergate story, Bob Woodward would again be under attack from the White House for trying to tell the truth. But this time the attack is coming from a Democrat.
While Barack Obama may not share the Nixon pedigree, he and his White House are the closest thing to the Nixon regime of any that we have seen since then -- both in the extent of their paranoia and their willingness to suppress the truth and push the boundaries of law.
In my lifetime, in over 40 years in national politics, Mr. Obama is the only president who comes close to rivaling Richard Nixon for fundamental disingenuousness.
