Today’s edition of quick hits. * Hillary tells Bill to please stop talking: “Sen. Hillary Clinton wants her husband to quit talking about her trip to Bosnia in 1996, the former president said Friday. ‘Hillary called me and said, ‘I misstated it, you said I misstated it, but you got to let me handle it […]
A tribute to Fox News
We’ve probably all seen some entertaining take-downs of Fox News, but The Daily Show’s John Oliver put together one of the gems to end all gems. Pay particular attention to the great contradictions on everything from executive privilege to pardons. Here’s the first part:
Last week, it was bowling; this week it’s orange juice
Look, I know it must be tough for the media personalities. It’s been a slow week on the campaign trail, and we’re still about two weeks away from the Pennsylvania primary. As Dayo Olopade noted the other day, the gap has created “a ‘news’ vacuum that has essentially forced the national media into a sort […]
Clinton forgets to leave well enough alone
A couple of weeks ago, Hillary Clinton got into a fair amount of trouble when she claimed to have faced sniper fire in 1996 during a diplomatic trip to Tuzla, Bosnia. After the story lingered for a few days, the campaign backed down, Clinton said she “misspoke,” and she even ended up telling a self-deprecating […]
Cheney’s mendacity knows no bounds
There are probably some grounded, half-way reasonable arguments against withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, but the fact that the White House keeps relying on sheer nonsense suggests the Bush gang can’t think of any, either. Consider Dick Cheney’s remarks on Sean Hannity’s radio show yesterday. HANNITY: If we pull out too early, what do you […]
McCain’s awkward civil rights record continues to draw scrutiny
Last week, on the anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King, John McCain’s record in opposition to a King holiday not only created a headache for the senator’s campaign, but ultimately led McCain to publicly acknowledge that he was wrong. His record on the Civil Rights Act of 1990 may prove to be a little […]
Friday’s campaign round-up
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: * The latest AP-Ipsos poll shows Barack Obama tied with John McCain in a national hypothetical match-up, at 45% each. Obama held a 10-point lead in the same poll in late April. The […]
The odd case of Dr. Cyril Wecht
There was a point last fall at which it seemed we were constantly learning of Bush-appointed U.S. Attorneys bringing dubious, politically-motivated charges against Democratic officials. Reader R.S. reminded me this week of one of the more striking examples out of Pennsylvania. Mary Beth Buchanan, the U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh, has long been the subject of […]
Who’s in charge here?
ABC News reported this week that a group of so-called “Principals” — including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice — met dozens of times in the White House to “discuss and approve” specific interrogation […]
The dreaded septuagenarian issue
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean hosted a press briefing yesterday to go over some new polling data from 17 swing states, and mentioned that the party would probably not go after John McCain’s age as a campaign issue. Noting that it’s the kind of personal tactic Republicans would be far more comfortable with, Dean […]