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By Edward W. Said
By Jon Wiener
$14.94
$35
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Looks like Sen. John McCain is being endorsed by more than one controversial preacher—the apparent “must-have” of leading presidential hopefuls this election cycle. Meet the Rev. Rod Parsley, whose support McCain sought and won, according to Brave New Films and Mother Jones, which have launched a collaborative effort to expose Parsley’s alarming beliefs about Islam and America’s role on the world stage.
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By Marie Cocco — There is no mystery to the missing lightning rods. John McCain neglects to volunteer the names of Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas as model jurists for an obvious reason.
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By Joe Conason — In this protracted and often dispiriting prelude to the general election, few remarks have been as poorly chosen as Sen. Hillary Clinton’s threat to “totally obliterate” Iran.
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Supreme Court / Steve Petteway
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The Democrats have been worried about unifying their party, so it’s odd that John McCain would pick this moment to give them another reason to band together. If elected, McCain said Tuesday, he would think of conservative Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito “as the model for my own nominees” to the Supreme Court.
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Whether it’s just window dressing or the opening salvo of a serious effort to court the Latino vote, John McCain has launched a Spanish-language Web site. While McCain was once a champion of immigration reform, he did a substantial bit of pandering during the Republicans-only leg of the campaign. In fact, he even said at one point that he wouldn’t vote for his own immigration bill.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Lately, the campaigns of both Democratic contenders have changed—and those changes have made both stronger. Now there’s a contest between the old Obama and the new Clinton. Updated.
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Tab, The Calgary Sun —
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The man who made his mark on the last presidential election cycle with his campaign-sinking scream, DNC Chairman Howard Dean, was the bearer of good predictions for Democrats on Thursday’s “Daily Show.” He explained the super-cryptic superdelegate system, the controversial notion of “electability” and what it’s like to be the candidate who missed out in ‘04 for “saying boo-ya at the wrong time.”
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By Eugene Robinson — There’s something maddening about this presidential campaign. It has become irrelevant whether anything the candidates say actually makes sense. Case in point: cutting the gas tax.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Do white right-wing preachers have it easier than black left-wing preachers? Is there a double standard?
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AP photo / Gerald Herbert, file
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By Bill Boyarsky — We are letting religious fanaticism dominate the presidential campaign. The candidates have brought it on themselves with tedious references to their churchgoing piety. Now we’re all paying for it. Who cares what their preachers say?
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Stephen Colbert has himself a laugh over the many superstitions of John McCain, whose political success can be attributed to his independent reputation and his lucky feather.
Posted on Apr 30, 2008
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Flickr / soggydan
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While the spotlight is starting to singe the Democrats, it’s true that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have gotten heaping doses of attention compared with the supposed media darling, John McCain. Here’s one indication: The covers of Time and Newsweek have featured the face of an Obama or a Clinton eight times since Super Tuesday.
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Flickr / Joe Crimmings Photography
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By Chris Hedges — The corporate state is our shadow government. Candidates who aspire to higher office get corporate money if they promote corporate interests. Barack Obama’s campaign message, filled with lofty promises of change and hope, is also filled with repeated reassurances to the corporate elite.
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By Eugene Robinson — Who picked this movie? A few months ago, the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination looked as if it would be the feel-good political campaign of the decade, if not the century. Instead, we’re having to endure an endless loop of “Alien vs. Predator.”
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Perhaps it was inevitable: The Democrats’ battle for the presidential nomination has now led us into the thicket of race and religion.
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AP photo / Mary Altaffer
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Sen. John McCain has a tough path and a lot to prove in his presidential campaign: that his age isn’t an issue, that he doesn’t have an anger problem and that he’s like Bush in ways some voters admire but unlike him in other ways. Thursday was a day for McCain to make himself appear very different indeed as he campaigned in New Orleans.
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By Ellen Goodman — Whether Democrats view Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton as the ideal change agent comes down to how they think change is made.
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By Joe Conason — Nobody with a functioning memory should be too quick to condemn Jimmy Carter for daring to speak with the leadership of Hamas, as nearly everyone along the American political spectrum suddenly has felt obliged to do.
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By Marie Cocco — Fittingly, and with dreadful predictability, John McCain used April 15—tax day—as the day to release his economic plan. Fittingly, and with dreadful predictability, it offers more of the same. But more of the same what?
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By Eugene Robinson — How on earth is the Republican Party going to sell John McCain? Once the Democrats stop doing the job, I mean.
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John McCain may have the Republican nomination wrapped up, but that isn’t stopping Ron Paul from campaigning in Pennsylvania, where he is attacking McCain as insufficiently conservative. It’s an odd posture for a candidate who won much support for his anti-war position, a topic that Paul omits here.
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World Economic Forum / Remy Steinegger
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British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is in the United States to discuss the global economy with President Bush, but the real excitement is over back-to-back meetings he has scheduled with the three U.S. presidential candidates.
Posted on Apr 17, 2008
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By Joe Conason — It is hard to blame John McCain for mocking Barack Obama as an “elitist” following that silly remark about bitter folks who cling to guns and religion. Rarely does the Arizona senator—one of the wealthiest members of Washington’s most exclusive club—encounter such a tempting chance to masquerade as a populist.
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By Ellen Goodman — I always thought that genealogy was for people whose blood ran blue. It was for folks who traced their ancestry to the Mayflower or the American Revolution, not those who came over in steerage one step ahead of the Cossacks.
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Flickr / djloche / jurvetson / seiu_international
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If you’re looking for an indicator of just how close the Democratic primary race is (delegate math notwithstanding), you need look no further than those all-important Hollywood donations. With nearly $6 million in entertainment industry contributions between them, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are separated by a mere $291.
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White House / Eric Draper
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There has been much speculation over the possibility of Condoleezza Rice as John McCain’s vice president. On Monday, the secretary of state gave her answer: “I don’t want to be, don’t intend to be, won’t be on the ticket.” Instead, she plans to return to academia. Because she’s an idea person.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The Democratic presidential candidates are doing a splendid job of helping John McCain get to the White House.
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CNN’s political panel takes Hillary Clinton to task over what Jeffrey Toobin calls her “ridiculous” and “embarrassing” attack on Barack Obama’s comment that some Americans are bitter about federal mishandling of the economy. And when John McCain’s criticism of the Obama comment comes up, Jack Cafferty nearly blows a gasket.
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By Eugene Robinson — No, it’s not your imagination: The “debate” about Iraq, and I use the word loosely, becomes ever more surreal as the occupation drags on.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The problem with the debate over our future course in Iraq is that the two sides are not even talking about the same things.
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AP photo / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
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By Bill Boyarsky — Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker’s congressional check-in about Iraq this week didn’t offer much hope for America’s overseas entanglements, and as coverage of the overseas wars wanes, the media isn’t holding politicians’ feet to the fire—or telling the real story about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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MoveOn has a new ad that ties John McCain to the Bush administration’s “victory is just around the corner” approach to selling the Iraq war. Will that tired line still work five years later? We’ll find out in November.
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abcnews.go.com
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Gen. Colin Powell won’t say who will get his vote this November, but on Thursday’s “Good Morning America,” the former secretary of state put in a good word for all three front-runners, praised Obama’s Rev. Wright speech and worried that the U.S. armed forces are becoming “very, very stretched” by the protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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By Joe Conason — Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the American forces in Iraq, is more candid than his publicity agents. Unlike the senators and editorial writers who claim that the glorious “surge” should be hailed as one of the most successful military campaigns in history, he warns that the escalation’s achievements are mixed at best.
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Flickr / realjameso16
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Barack Obama’s fundraising machine has exceeded expectations and broken records, so it’s no wonder that he has hinted at retreating from public financing, a move his rivals are already trying to exploit. But Taegan Goddard argues that this “flip-flop story” could work to Obama’s advantage.
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“The Daily Show’s” Lewis Black probes the soft underbelly of the celebrity endorsement, from the guy who played Kumar to the “political juggernaut that is Dick Van Patten.” And if you think Oprah is excited about Barack Obama, just wait until you see how she reacts to the cast of “Desperate Housewives.”
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AP photo / Susan Walsh
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Gen. David Petraeus dug in his heels during a Senate hearing Tuesday, refusing to give specifics about additional U.S. troop withdrawal plans after July, recommending a “pause” instead and taking heat from congressional opponents like Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton in the process. Meanwhile, John McCain spoke of “real hope and optimism” for Iraq’s future.
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By Eugene Robinson — Oh please oh please oh please. I know it’s undignified to beg, but please let John McCain pick Condoleezza Rice as his running mate.
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If the election comes down to bowling ability, the Democrats are in serious trouble. Hillary Clinton poked fun at her rival’s poor showing at the lanes, but it turns out she can’t bowl either. Of course, there’s no evidence John McCain would fare any better. Is it too much to ask that the next president be able to roll a ball in a straight line?
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Flickr / lieberman_2006
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While he continues to get tremendous support from Republicans (go figure), Joe Lieberman is on the outs with Democrats and independents in his home district, according to a new poll. Were an election held today, 74 percent of Democrats would vote for Ned Lamont, while the same percentage of Republicans would vote for Lieberman over their own candidate.
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John McCain told a Memphis crowd gathered in memory of the assassination of Martin Luther King that “I was wrong” to oppose a national holiday for Dr. King, but that didn’t stop some in the crowd from heckling the would-be president.
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By David Sirota — The real John McCain is re-emerging: a politician who rakes in big bucks by being a hired gun for the corporations.
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Barack Obama raised more than $40 million in March to Hillary Clinton’s $20 million. Between them, the Democrats took in about three times in March what John McCain raised in January and February combined. That’s good news for Democrats, but only, as Donna Brazile points out, if the money isn’t “used to tear the party apart.”
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By Joe Conason — The most puzzling aspect of John McCain’s political persona is his habitual attraction to George W. Bush’s bad ideas.
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Flickr / digiart2001
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There was the Jason Blair scandal, the Judith Miller WMD fiasco, the John McCain (yawn) brouhaha and the appointment of neocon “never-get-it-right” William Kristol as an Op-Ed columnist, to mention a few New York Times blunders. All that and a shareholders’ assault make the Sulzbergers’ lock on ownership of The New York Times seem not entirely impregnable, explains Vanity Fair’s Michael Wolff.
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Oklahoma Needs Help, Not Ideology
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