Recent scientific breakthroughs on stem-cell research are so promising, some of the right’s less-informed pundits, such as the WaPo’s Charles Krauthammer, have decided to take a victory lap. A decade ago, [James] Thomson was the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells. Last week, he (and Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka) announced one of the great scientific […]
As regular readers know, I’ve been pushing Rudy Giuliani’s serial exaggerations pretty hard, hoping against hope that traditional news outlets would notice the same trend. I started making the connection in July, but reporters said we’d have to wait until the new year before news outlets showed any interest. With that in mind, seeing this […]
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * Barack Obama has been trading shots for a few weeks with the Clintons, but that doesn’t mean the senator has any ill will towards the former president. In an interview with Time […]
Less than a week ago, Time magazine’s Mark Halperin raised a quite a few eyebrows in the world of political journalism with a startling NYT op-ed. Halperin, best known for his work at ABC News (“The Note” was his creation) before becoming a senior political analyst for Time, argued that there are fundamental problems with […]
Early on at Wednesday night’s CNN debate for Republican presidential candidates, a young woman in Huntsville, Ala., asked the field what they would do “to repair the image of America in the eyes of the Muslim world?” Given the current of state of international diplomacy, it seemed like a reasonable question. But last night, far-right […]
As the “Shag Fund” scandal continues to unfold, more reporters at more outlets are beginning to recognize the seriousness of Rudy Giuliani’s latest scandal. Worse, the former mayor’s presidential campaign has struggled to come up with coherent explanations, offering contradictory accounts. Worse, it’s insisting that Ben Smith’s original report is “false,” but it can’t say […]
At Wednesday’s debate for Republican presidential hopefuls, several candidates said they’d turn to military leaders when it comes to allowing gays to serve in the armed forces. Mitt Romney said, “I’m going to listen to the people who run the military.” John McCain said he would rely on “designated leaders with the responsibility of the […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * Good lord, it gets worse: “Well before it was publicly known he was seeing her, then-married New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani provided a police driver and city car for his mistress Judith Nathan, former senior city officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com. ‘She used the PD as her personal […]
Over the last 24 hours, much of the political world has been pondering Rudy Giuliani’s misuse of resources to help cover-up his taxpayer-financed excursions with his mistress. In light of all the lingering questions, perhaps it’s best to pause for a moment — and shift our attention to another Giuliani scandal that’s just starting to […]
Mitt Romney had a few uncomfortable, deer-in-the-headlights moments in last night’s CNN/YouTube debate, but perhaps the most memorable was in response to a question from a young man in Seattle: “Recently, Senator McCain has come strongly against using waterboarding as an instrument of interrogation. My question for the rest of you is, considering that Mr. […]