Obama’s former church (gasp!) helps its parishioners

Andrew Sullivan recently unveiled “The Hewitt Award,” named after “the absurd partisan fanatic, Hugh Hewitt,” which Sullivan extends to “the most egregious attempts to label Barack Obama as un-American, alien, treasonous, and far out of the mainstream of American life and politics.” And Hewitt is definitely living up to his reputation. Last night, Hewitt posted […]

Be on the lookout for ‘terrorist fist jabs’

Just back from a two-week vacation, my friend Kevin Drum can’t help but notice what reporters consider the big news from the campaign trail: “[A]pparently the real news from the past couple of weeks is that Barack and Michelle Obama bumped their fists together at a campaign event. That’s news that produces video you can […]

Clinton suspends campaign, urges backers to work ‘as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me’

As expected, Hillary Clinton suspended her presidential campaign this afternoon at an event in DC. Hillary Rodham Clinton suspended her historic campaign for the presidency on Saturday, declaring her full support for Barack Obama. “I endorse him and throw my full support behind him,” Clinton said. Clinton urged her supporters to rally behind her ex-rival, […]

A closer look at what went wrong

As Hillary Clinton wraps up a 17-month, historic, nearly-successful presidential campaign, the inevitable “what went wrong?” question is still very much on the minds of the political world. I’ve seen more than a few lists, detailing various mistakes and misjudgments, but surprisingly enough, they’re all pretty similar, and point to a near-consensus about missteps that […]

Top McCain advisor says Obama is too similar to Bush

It’s pretty obvious the McCain campaign is worried about Democratic arguments that McCain offers a third Bush term. With each passing day, the campaign goes to greater lengths to thread the needle — not denouncing Bush, but creating some distance from Mr. 25%, too. Yesterday, McCain’s top policy adviser went so far as to label […]

This Week in God

First up from The God Machine this week is a story about the latest efforts from some religious activists to oppose school lessons on modern biology. One of the great ironies of creationists, which often goes overlooked, is that their efforts follow an evolutionary model closely — descent with modification. They attack evolutionary biology from […]

The Religious Right is not lovin’ it at McDonald’s

Guest Post by Morbo I’m not a huge fan of McDonald’s. It’s corporate fast food, unhealthy and not all that tasty. But I may have to run out for a Big Mac this weekend simply because the Rev. Donald Wildmon doesn’t want me to. Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association, has been on a […]

Thar she blows!: Searching for the ‘Great Whitey Tape’

Guest Post by Morbo Herman Melville’s Captain Ahab became obsessed with searching for a great white whale. These days, some right-wingers are obsessing over the “great whitey tape.” Ahab’s search led him to a bad end, and I suspect the right wingers’ will as well. If you’re just joining us, the “great whitey tape” (GWT) […]

Bobby, we hardly knew ye, either

Guest Post by Morbo I’ve seen a lot of old television footage of Robert F. Kennedy over the past few days. He was assassinated 40 years ago. RFK was shot on June 5, 1968, and died the next day. I was a kid when this happened. Since I barely remember Bobby, I decided a few […]

Friday’s Mini-Report

Today’s edition of quick hits. * Uh oh, Part I: “Oil prices shot up nearly $11 a barrel and settled Friday at a record $138.54 – driven by geopolitical jitters, a dollar decline stemming from a weak jobs report and a forecast that oil would hit $150 by July 4. Friday’s spike in the July […]