Large corporations are getting more involved in politics. Whether that is seen as a good thing or a bad thing depends upon the political issue involved and the side the corporation takes (and, of course, the side you're personally on). Conservatives cheer when corporations take a stand on abortion, liberals cheer when a corporation stands up for gay or civil rights. But it does seem like we're entering into a new era of corporate political behavior, or (since they're apparently people now) perhaps "corporate citizenship" might be a better term.

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It's been a rollercoaster week in the political world, beginning with Hillary Clinton shifting the gears of her campaign by holding her first big rally, which was immediately followed by the man we're going to call "Jeb! Bush!" finally officially announcing his own candidacy.

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Today, Jeb Bush formally entered the race for the Republican nomination for president. I should point out, as a bit of personal trivia, that his new campaign logo ("Jeb!") has allowed me to create what I believe is the shortest headline I have ever written (in over 2,000 blog posts).

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Perry is the tenth Republican to throw his hat in the 2016 ring, joining Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Rick Santorum. There are at least five other Republicans who will also likely make a run for their party's nomination, but they have yet to formally announced their candidacies.

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This is going to be a rather abbreviated column, because President Obama's job approval poll numbers didn't change much either way in May. Not only were the changes minimal, it also flattened the trendlines out all the way back to February. Let's take a quick look at the chart to see what I'm talking about:

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We continue our running series of taking a serious look at all the announced candidates for president with two new entries this week, one from each side of the aisle. Republican Lindsey Graham made his formal announcement earlier in the week, and today Democrat Lincoln Chafee is also set to announce his candidacy.

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We're going to begin today with a rather loaded question. How much attention do you think the media should be paying towards a presidential nominee who is right now getting 13 to 15 percent support in public opinion polls of their party's voters?

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This is really just a program note, to state that there will be no column today.
I went looking for a Memorial Day column to re-run today, and found two that are still worth pondering: the first one I think I ever wrote and the one dedicated to all the second-class soldiers and sailors who served [...]

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It's one of those rare weeks in Washington where Congress deigns to actually do their job and vote on some stuff... before lapsing back into their default status, which is of course: "taking weeks and weeks off, on vacation."

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Jeb Bush certainly had a bad week last week, as he struggled to come up with a clear answer to a question he really should have been expecting in the first place. Other Republicans also struggled to admit that the Iraq War was indeed a mistake (which is somewhat understandable, because by doing so they are criticizing a former Republican president). But while the spectacle of Republicans having to admit a big Republican mistake certainly is amusing, there's an even bigger question which so far has remained unasked: "Knowing all the things we've learned in the past decade and a half, what would it take for you to send American troops to fight an overseas war?" This is the real question the voters deserve an answer to. To put it more bluntly: "How many more wars can we expect if you are elected?"

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