With George Bush back in Texas (for good, by his own admission) The Dubya Report's mission is changing slightly, to monitor the conservative movement and its paradoxical efforts to reach Karl Rove's "permanent majority" in the face of egregious evidence that its ideology has failed. Of course we'll still keep an eye on the fallout from one of the most disastrous presidencies in history.

Returning visitors will notice a few changes in our appearance. We're now powered by the Drupal content management system. Many of the familiar features are still available, either from the menu at the left or the right. And as you can see, the search facility has been moved to the home page.We'll be making more changes over the next few weeks.

So to new visitors, welcome; to returning visitors, welcome back; and we hope you'll keep coming back for the news, analysis and commentary you've come to expect from The Dubya Report.

Dubya Report contributor Publius wrote us recently:

OK, let me get this straight:

On the Republican side you have a candidate who was at the center of a major political/financial scandal that cost the taxpayers billions, who cheated on and ultimately left his disabled wife in order to marry an heiress worth 100 million, many years his junior, who herself stole prescription drugs from the non-profit she nominally headed in order to feed her addiction to prescription painkillers. He chose as his running mate a person who, despite the claim that she is a bold reformer, headed the PAC for the one of the more corrupt members of Congress, lied about her opposition to pork barrel gifts to Alaska, has evidently used her political power to fire on more than one occasion public officials who disagreed with her, or thwarted her will on purely personal matters, and is now parroting Bush/Cheney claims of executive power over the duly constituted authority of the State legislature seeking to investigate her wrongdoing. And this is not even talking about the lunacy of opposing contraception and advocating abstinence even faced with the unwed pregnancy of her 17 year old daughter.

On the Democratic side you have the son of a teenage mother who raised him as a single parent, who by dint of superior intellect and drive graduated near the top of the most prestigious law school in the country, eschewed corporate practice to work as a community organizer, and goes on to a life in politics, and has, by all accounts, an exemplary, monogamous family life, who chooses as his running mate a blue collar guy who, after his wife was killed, commuted every night from Washington to Wilmington so that he could tuck his kids in and feed them breakfast in the morning.

And the Republicans are considered the party of family values? It makes me want to scream.
-- September 2, 2008

As the summer driving season begins many Americans will come face-to-face with one of the Bush administration's crowning achievements — the $4 gallon of gas. Like the subprime mortgage crisis, high gas prices and the related high prices of crude oil have made their way from the business pages to front pages of major newspapers. Yet, earlier this year CBS's Peter Maer asked Bush if he had any advice for the average American facing the prospect of $4/gallon gasoline. Bush, the former unsuccessful oil man, had not heard the prediction. "Oh yeah? That's interesting. I hadn't heard that," Bush said.

The Bush administration has presided over at least a 4-fold increase in the price of oil, from approximately $30/barrel on the day of Bush's inauguration to $134/barrel as of this writing. The man who headed Vice President Cheney's task force, Andrew Lundquist, is now a lobbyist representing several of the firms that that task force interviewed, including BP, Duke Energy, and the American Petroleum Institute. Citing "executive privilege" the administration has refused to release the task force's 170-page report to the press or the public. The Bush family has had an unusually close relationship with the Saudi royal family dating back at least to 1986 when "Poppy" Bush convinced the Saudis to limit oil production. In the current administration former Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar had such privileged access to "Junior" that he was given the nickname "Bandar Bush."