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By John Gray
$24.00
By James Andrew Miller, Tom Shales
$14.91
$23
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Truthdig / Zuade Kaufman
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By Gore Vidal — The iconic author objects to Newsweek’s obituary of his onetime rival, William F. Buckley, a “knightly man” who stood up to “bullies” like Gore Vidal ... by verbally gay-bashing him on national television.
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boston.com
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At the request of House Republicans, Congress on Thursday held a closed-door session to debate the FISA warrantless eavesdropping bill. The last time a closed-door session occurred was in 1983, when lawmakers convened in secret to discuss clandestine U.S. support of Contra paramilitaries in Nicaragua.
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Adm. William Fallon, head of the U.S. Central Command, resigned on Tuesday, explaining that his reputation as an obstacle to President Bush’s military designs had become too much of a distraction. Fallon was often reported to be a thorn in the side of the president and his other military advisers, a role both the admiral and administration officials strongly deny.
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By David Sirota — Reading articles about Hillary Clinton attacking NAFTA can lead you to believe The Onion has taken over America’s news bureaus.
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latimes.com
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Under pressure during Tuesday’s debate, Hillary Clinton hinted that she might release her tax returns earlier than “once I become the nominee,” a schedule that had drawn criticism from Barack Obama and the press. But aides speaking with the media the next day retreated from that opening.
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thepage.time.com
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There have been 20 debates between the Democratic candidates, three featuring only Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and if this final confrontation had any game-changing potential, the opportunity has come and passed. There were a few tense moments, to be sure, but no gaffes, no inappropriate sighs to puzzle over, just two people who claim to like each other and largely agree on everything.
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It wasn’t the easiest moment in Tuesday’s Democratic debate for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, but both candidates handled it well when moderator Brian Williams broached the uncomfortable subject of the photo, leaked to the Drudge Report early Monday for apparently political purposes, of Obama wearing traditional African garb in Kenya.
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newsweek.com
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How quickly the tides turn for would-be presidential nominees. Just a few weeks ago, a former Arkansas governor was grabbing headlines, and it wasn’t Bill Clinton. Now, Mike Huckabee is calling for a debate with GOP front-runner John McCain and almost no one in the media is taking note except the six reporters still assigned to trail him.
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Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been stirring up the Internet and more than a few journalists with accusations of word borrowing, a charge she pressed (to the dismay of the audience) at Thursday’s Democratic debate with Barack Obama. But in that same venue, it appears she may have borrowed a few words of her own.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The boilerplate in a candidate’s speeches gets little attention because words used over and over never constitute “news.” But one of John McCain’s favorite lines—his declaration that “the transcendent challenge of the 21st century is radical Islamic extremists,” or, as he sometimes says it, “extremism”—could define the 2008 election.
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AP photo / Elise Amendola
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Perhaps regardless of Tuesday’s election results, Sen. Hillary Clinton is looking toward the next debate opportunity—this time sponsored by Fox News—on Feb. 11. Barack Obama, however, hasn’t agreed yet to appear on the conservative channel.
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With mere days left before Super Tuesday and down to just two candidates, Thursday’s Democratic debate in Los Angeles gave voters a crucial eleventh-hour look at Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who kept things friendly enough while staking out their differences on several key issues—health care, the economy and, most importantly, the Iraq war.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — If the Arizona senator secures the Republican presidential nomination, his victory would signal a revolution in American politics—a divorce, after a 28-year marriage, between the Republican and conservative establishments.
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By Joe Conason — The most likely motive for Bill Clinton’s reckless political performance in recent weeks, ironically and sadly, is to redress the terrible humiliations he inflicted on his wife in years past.
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There were some heated exchanges in Wednesday’s debate between the Republican candidates. John McCain and Mitt Romney argued about who wanted to stay in Iraq longer and Ron Paul won a round of applause when he said the front-runners were bickering over “technicalities” while their war bankrupts the country.
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What’s to be done about the sagging U.S. economy? What’s with John McCain’s dogged insistence that we’re “succeeding” in Iraq? Thursday night found the handful of Republican candidates still in the ‘08 race for the White House facing off in Florida. Here’s what they had to say.
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By Eugene Robinson — Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys took the stage at a rally for John Edwards in South Carolina on Wednesday, and out of a clear sky it started raining metaphors.
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By Joe Conason — Supporters of one Democratic candidate or another may insist that their man or woman won last Monday’s debate in South Carolina, but in their hearts most viewers could only have been disappointed by its childish tenor and puerile content.
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The issue of campaign financing was raised once again during Monday’s debate between the Democrats, so we thought we’d check the numbers and see how much the candidates are getting and from whom.
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Despite all the smiles, the Democratic campaign has been contentious for a while now. With the nomination on the line like never before, the candidates really let it fly in this, the most heated presidential debate yet. Yes, there have been a thousand already, but if there’s one Democratic debate you don’t want to miss, it’s this one.
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By Amy Goodman — One pundit called the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas “a lovefest.” It may well have been, but only because the corporate sponsor of the debate, General Electric-owned NBC News and its cable news channel MSNBC, rescinded its invitation to candidate Dennis Kucinich.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Clinton and Obama would court failure by ignoring the white working class, a group that has reasons to be discontented.
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bp1.blogspot.com
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Rep. Dennis Kucinich just can’t catch a break in Nevada. First NBC invited him to its debate there, then told him to stay away. A court intervened and said he could appear, but then just an hour before the event, the Nevada Supreme Court decided that NBC could bar Kucinich.
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msnbc.msn.com
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Talk about bad manners—MSNBC had just broken the mold of recent Democratic debates by inviting Rep. Dennis Kucinich to Tuesday’s debate in Las Vegas when, less than 48 hours later, network brass decided to change their qualification criteria and informed Kucinich he wasn’t welcome after all. Updated
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Ronald Reagan may be dead, but he’s running for president. At least he might as well be, given the nonstop competition among Republican candidates, captured here, to worship him.
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By David Sirota — This real-life regular guy is forthrightly emphasizing the issue of class in America—which makes the Establishment mighty uncomfortable but invigorates the presidential campaign.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Maybe the signs pointing to Hillary Clinton’s victory in the New Hampshire primary were there all along, hidden in plain sight by the blur of Obamamania and a stack of flawed polls.
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What was up with Fox News excluding Ron Paul from Sunday’s Republican debate? Jay Leno puzzles over the network’s decision, and Paul posits some answers: He’s a “strict constitutionalist” and anti-Iraq war. Leno points out that Paul’s a “Republican.” But as for Fox News higher-ups, the Texas politician responds, “They’re not.”
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AP photo / Stephan Savoia
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Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich won’t accept his exclusion from ABC’s debates on Saturday without a fight. Kucinich filed a complaint with the FCC Friday, claiming ABC is denying him equal time and noting that parent company Disney has made campaign contributions to the four invited Democrats.
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cnn.com
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ABC News has announced that Democrats Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel (above) and Republican Duncan Hunter failed to meet its benchmarks and will not be allowed to participate in Saturday’s New Hampshire debate. On the Democratic side, that leaves four candidates in the debate; Joe Biden and Chris Dodd dropped out of the race after poor showings in Iowa.
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AP photo / Charlie Niebergall
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By Gore Vidal — Whither Dennis Kucinich? If the powers that be at CNN and a certain Iowa news outlet (attention: Des Moines Register) thought that elbowing Kucinich out of the most recent Democratic presidential debate would slip by unnoticed, Gore Vidal is more than ready to disabuse them of that notion.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The Democratic contest in Iowa—and possibly the battle for the party’s presidential nomination—hangs on whether Hillary Clinton can use the next two weeks to encourage second thoughts about Barack Obama, and get voters to take a second look at her.
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By Marie Cocco — Of all the upsets that can sour a holiday season—pinched wallets, contaminated toys, sugar overload and overbearing in-laws—is there anything that can dull the spirit like a presidential primary season unfolding in its midst?
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Video blogger and Dennis Kucinich fan Davis Fleetwood hits the streets of Des Moines to find out why the peace candidate was excluded from the final Democratic debate before the Iowa caucus.
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AP photo / Matthew Putney
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By Bill Boyarsky — John Edwards’ words at the last Iowa Democratic debate sounded so out of tune with this year’s campaign discourse—and so sensible and important—that the man might as well have been campaigning on another planet.
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By Eugene Robinson — Is the thought of him as president just vaguely scary? Or have we learned enough about the man that we should be hair-on-fire alarmed at the prospect, still pretty remote, that he could actually win?
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AP photo / Charlie Niebergall
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It’s not at all shocking when candidates and their assorted aides take pot shots at each other as they slog through the long and dirty campaign trail, but it’s at least a bit surprising when they ‘fess up to it. That’s just what happened— twice! —in about 24 hours.
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By Ellen Goodman — After being wooed by a bunch of homely political veterans, the GOP is now playing kissy with Huckabee. But go slow, Republicans: The new suitor has his own share of ugly warts.
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By Ellen Goodman — Barack Obama is a do-gooder who has promised to do away with polarization and political bickering, but what if the Democrats need a winner more than a healer?
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YouTube
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Before Mitt Romney takes such a hard line against undocumented workers, he might try to find an American citizen willing to cut the grass at his suburban Boston home. For the second time in a year, the candidate has been caught employing undocumented immigrants by way of a landscaping company, which he has now fired.
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By Marie Cocco — The English language won’t be done in by the influx of Latin Americans. To see the fallacy of this warning, just take a little look at American history.
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Rep. Dennis Kucinich stole the show at the Brown and Black Democratic Forum when he hijacked the format to ask himself a question.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The CNN/YouTube debate was a depressing spectacle. There was little inspiration for the future, no sense that Republicans are grappling with why their party has become so unpopular, and few departures from rigid adherence to the party line on taxes, guns, gay rights and other questions.
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The CNN/YouTube Republican debate could easily have been written off as a gimmick, or at least just another in a glut of debates, but it actually delivered some interesting moments, from the YouTuber who asked what Jesus would do about the death penalty to Mitt Romney explaining torture to John McCain.
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Boy, was CNN ever psyched about a Ron Paul interview they had on their site—a major traffic driver for CNN.com!—the day of the CNN/YouTube Republican debate, CNN’s John Roberts tells Paul in this clip from the channel’s post-debate coverage Wednesday. Paul, seemingly nonplused, points out that he was summarily and unfairly ignored until close to the end and gets in a few digs at his fellow candidates.
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AP photo / Elise Amendola
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By Bill Boyarsky — Reporters often live in the moment, focusing on the present and forgetting, at least temporarily, about the past and future—a trait that works well for many journalistic beats. Boyarsky warns that “when such habits are brought to the political beat, we’re all in trouble.”
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Howard Dean knows a thing or two about the perils of the campaign trail. Here, the man who emitted the deadliest scream in American political history wonders why any of the Republican presidential hopefuls taking the stage in Wednesday’s CNN/YouTube debate consider themselves candidates of change.
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By David Sirota — “Ross Perot was fiercely against NAFTA. Knowing what we know now, was Ross Perot right?” It was a straightforward query about a Clinton administration trade policy that polls show the public now hates, and it was appropriately directed to a candidate who has previously praised NAFTA.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The contours of the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination are set, and it is not a battle about “issues.” Advisers to the major contenders largely see things this way, and Democratic voters are in a quandary about what to do.
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How the IRS’ Nonprofit Division Got So Dysfunctional
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