Reading the Sunday Papers
As long time readers of this space--all three of you--know, I like to start my reading with the Guardian (and on Sunday, the Observer), my favourite newspaper. Lately, and for the next weeks, the...
View ArticleSarkozy: Lazy Reporters Crazy, Says He
All right, not exactly crazy, but sometimes you gotta force a rhyme. Today's New York Times has an article about France's new President's first interview with foreign reporters. He impressed the New...
View ArticleSex and pols and press and Nixon
Well, for the 11.86 of you who come by on an average day, I've been without DSL at my summer location but am over it now. One thing middle aged male politicians can't seem to get over is the allure of...
View ArticleMore P.R. Attacks on Journalism's (don't laugh) Integrity
This from today's Washington Post: FEMA gave reporters 15 minutes notice that the deputy administrator would be having a briefing at HQ, "making it unlikely," as the Post says, "that many could show...
View ArticleI Like Mike (Mukasey!)
I was idly flipping through the C-Span channels after one of them had just cut off Prime Minister's Questions just when Gordon Brown was about to respond to that windbagwhippersnapperDavid Cameron when...
View ArticleWaiting for the Iowa Editorial Board
This enjoyable glimpse of backstage politics in today's Times is about the pressure on the three-woman editorial board of the Des Moines Register to endorse a Democratic candidate for President. I...
View ArticleAnnotated Archives
Annotated Archives/Published Punditry"I've suffered for my art, now it's your turn."Click through the links below to see all the pieces I've written for major publications such as the Christian...
View ArticleThe Press Packs a Punch
You can't make this stuff up:Anchorwoman ArrestedBy THE ASSOCIATED PRESSPublished: December 17, 2007A television news anchor from Philadelphia was arrested in Manhattan on Sunday after she punched a...
View ArticleA Hillary Lover Sings
No, this is not a confessional that will soon appear on the Drudge Report, but it is a sideways plug for Billy Bragg and also what this long time supporter of Hillary Clinton has to say 11 days before...
View ArticleHow Consultants (like me) Harm Democracy
The New York Times today again tackles one of the great perennial news stories, and one of my personal favorites: why political consultants cost too much.I've been writing about this since this...
View ArticleThe Lady, or the Tiger?
Sorry, but I just couldn't resist that one, as cable news went split screen gaga over the simultaneously breaking news of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the escaped murderous tiger in San...
View ArticleThe Results from Iowa are in--I was wrong again!
I don't know why anyone would listen to my views on politics. With the record I have for political prognosticating, I wouldn't pay attention to myself either. But for the 12.96 of you who do on a...
View ArticleWhy the Polls Were Wrong
As the Christian Science Monitorquotes me today saying, it wuz wimmen who came out for Hillary in New Hampshire and who remain her secret weapon. Obama gives a great speech but he doesn't really have...
View ArticleI prefer partisanship to the politics of hope
If you've found your way to this website because of my op ed in Tuesday's Christian Science Monitor, welcome. This site is dedicated to demystifying some of the black arts of political consulting as...
View ArticleClinton(s) vs. Obama--Fair Fight?
As I've predicted in this space for years, Bill Clinton is proving to be a huge factor in his wife's presidential candidacy. I don't agree with everything Mark Penn says (and boy, is Chris Mathews...
View ArticleHeadlineUpdate Updated Headlines
So, as praiseworthy as they may have been (as I wrote in my previous post), Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have pulled their radio ads accusing one of being a Reagan fan and the other as excessively...
View ArticlePress Hyperventilates over Kennedy Endorsement(s)
Ted Kennedy's (along with Caroline Kennedy's) (but not Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's!) endorsement of Barack Obama is, according to the Washington Post "a key boost" and "a huge boost" according to the...
View ArticleThe Great Debate--Obama and Clinton Play it Safe
First thoughts about the eerie event broadcast on CNN tonight. Other-worldly because it resembled no other televisied presidential debate I've ever seen. Wolf Blitzer promised a "real debate" and...
View ArticleMy Predictions for Super Tuesday
Now, given the fact that I"m always wrong, how can I resist weighing in on the biggest political story of the year?As a hopeless consumer of the Clinton conventional wisdom, I'm still hoping that she...
View ArticleWhat It All Means
Ah, such a good question. Who's to say really? What can we mortals say with any certainty?Oh, what Super Tuesday means. Ah, such a good question...I found most of the answers in the most essential...
View ArticleFinally, I Was Right!
As I'm not shy about admitting, I'm often wrong about my political predictions. (Kerry/Cleland? Mayor Mark Green? Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend?) but I've been saying for months that John...
View ArticleYou Say Obama, I Say Uncle
As regular readers of this space know--all 12.82 of you--I've been a confident, enthusiastic supporter of Hillary Clinton for years. I admit it, I want Bill back, but also I want my daughter to know...
View ArticleMcCain-Romney?
Have I just seen the Republican ticket? Watching Mitt Romney stand behind John McCain was like watching Dan Quayle--a man born to be Vice President. Oh, they'll say that McCain and Romney won't be...
View ArticleMcCain and the Lobbyist(s)
The most interesting part of what so far, no one is calling "McCaingate," was this nugget from the much anticipated New York Times story today:'At one point, his campaign invited scores of...
View ArticleHillary Clinton's Shocking Confession!
Never mind what she said in last night's debate, the real news is what's in her campaign spending report, as enumerated in today's New York Times. The shocking, shocking news is that she spent a lot...
View ArticleYou Can Read It In The Sunday Papers
Once again, I'm pushing nostalgia for Joe Jackson as well as a recommendation that we all spent a little more time reading good newspapers on Sunday morning (sorry, Cincinnati, you can read the Times...
View ArticleHillary's Celestial Choirs
Considering what I wrote in the Christian Science Monitor last month, I consider myself quoted by Hillary Clinton as she wonders about the realities of the "politics of hope." I still think, as the...
View ArticleSome Wise Words About Hillary
Thank you, Gail Collins, for today's New York Times column about Hillary Clinton. It's spot on about Clinton's troubles and I agree, as another famously unsuccessful presidential candidate once said,...
View ArticlePost Primary Partum Blues
Now that the dust has settled from "Super Tuesday II" a couple of points seem evident. First, as Taegan Goddard, the proprietor of the indispensable Political Wire writes in his new Political Insider...
View ArticleGov Fingered In Hooker Probe
I owe my friend Paul B. that title, which he entered in the New York Post's "Write Your Own Headline." There's been a lot of interesting comment about Eliot Spitzer, from Ruth Marcus in the Post to...
View ArticleObama's Speech -- Visionary or Dumb?
First thing every morning, and often thereafter during the day, I check out Taegan Goddard's Political Wire, and recently I saw these opinions of Barack Obama's speech on race. I'm inclined to agree...
View ArticleYou Heard It Here First (And Not From Me)
PoliticalWire has this tantalizing story today. Can a deal really be in the works? Will Howard Dean finally show some backbone? Reprinted here in full:The Las Vegas Review Journal runs a brief...
View ArticleMcCain's "American President" Ad
The Washington Post among others, prints the wrong-headed speculation today that John McCain's first national campaign ad, calling him "The American President America Has Been Waiting For" is somehow a...
View ArticleOh Boy! Another Story About Greedy Consultants!
So Mark Penn is out and Howard Wolfson is in. If this had been a plot line on The West Wingwe'd have dismissed it as old-school. Losing candidates have fired strategists when the going gets tough for...
View ArticleExactly! (Or Why Obama is Wrong)
As I opined in the Christian Science Monitor back in January, I think partisanship and what Barack Obama calls "textbook" politics happens to be the way to beat devious, big spending Republicans....
View Article"It's How the Loser Loses"
Rahm Emanuel said that. Frank Rich says it today too. Howard Dean said it on Meet the Press. I've been saying it since January 2007. The only way Democrats can lose in November is if whoever...
View ArticleHow It Feels To Be Wrong About Everything
I know I've said this before, but really, now I give up. I said with such authority that it was certain that Hillary Clinton would be our next President. I thought everyone missed Bill and that...
View ArticleHillary's Bobby Kennedy Remarks--There's no there there!
It's what Gertrude Stein said about Oakland (and according to the link you just clicked on, not necessarily in the context we've all thought she meant) and it describes the kerfuffle over what...
View ArticleA Hillary Lover Speaks (v.2)
Once again, I'm referencing the great Billy Bragg, whose "Levi Stubbs' Tears" just might be the greatest song ever recorded. And I'm fessing up to how in the tank I"ve been for Mrs. Clinton. But as...
View ArticleJohn "Bobblehead" McCain
While we wait for Hillary and Barack to speak, may I ask the question no doubt on the lips of anyone who's been watching McCain: who told you to move every six seconds and look in a different...
View ArticleEloquent Hillary, Bobblehead McCain and Where We Go From Here
Will people still be talking about Tuesday after Hillary Clinton's speech on Saturday? It is a lot to ask of a losing presidential candidate to give up their right to a controlled exit, appropriately...
View ArticleThis Week's Other Important Political Obituary
Two deaths this week illuminate some essential truths about the media. First, to paraphrase William Goldman’s classic line about Hollywood, “nobody knows anything—except for the few people who do.” (I...
View ArticleBreaking News from CNN: The Election’s Over!
Breaking News: Read this post on The Huffington Post!When former FCC Commissioner Newton Minow famously observed that television was a “vast wasteland,” cable news hadn’t even been invented yet. With...
View ArticleNews Update: Obama to Accept Nomination on the Moon
HeadlineUpdate Update: Read this on the Huffington Post(but come back to this site for more jocularity)Barack Obama will accept the Democratic presidential nomination on the Moon, and not as...
View ArticleWhen Bad PR Happens to Good People, or, Jeffrey Birnbaum’s Revenge
Read a version of this post on the Huffington PostWashington Post columnist Jeffrey Birnbaum has his panties in a twist again about the practice of public policy...
View ArticlePlay TV Talking Heads Rope-A-Dope Poker
You can also read this entry on The Huffington Post (and if you like it, consider becoming a "fan!")The networks' convention coverage can be so mind-numbingly tedious that viewers are concocting their...
View ArticleBarack's Bucks--Or Lack Thereof
A line buried deep within this New York Times story about Barack Obama's apparent fundraising slowdown jolts the attentive, politically savvy reader with this admission:David Plouffe, the Obama...
View ArticleMedical Advance Enables McCain to Talk Out of Both Sides of His Mouth
Also posted on The Huffington PostJohn McCain's campaign announced today that doctors at the University of Arizona successfully performed surgery on Senator McCain that will allow him to simultaneously...
View ArticleMore from Weird New Jersey
How weird is this? Check out the last graf of the AP story about NJ Gov. Jon Corzine's accident. Actually, calling Cozine the "third straight" governor is false, and not just because it's a slur on...
View ArticleImus Laughs Last?
Hello again, or good evening. The New York Times has the story I've been waiting for on the Don Imus affair. The clip of Imus' remarks show the culpability of Imus' producer Bernie McGuirk, who egged...
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