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By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
$26.00
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By Gore Vidal
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$21
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The candidate who has gone from microscopic numbers to front-runner status is starting to feel the heat, but Mike Huckabee would rather suffer the slings and arrows of his opponents’ attacks than go back to toiling away in conservative obscurity: “It’s almost like ‘take your best shot, people.’ ” Now if the marginalized Democratic candidates could replicate Huckabee’s success, we’d have an exciting race on our hands.
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The Onion pokes fun at the nonsense issues, costume pageantry and theatrical pandering that have taken over the American electoral process.
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By Eugene Robinson — Is it foolish to think that a nation stained by centuries of slavery and racism is prepared to elect a black president? Rarely phrased so bluntly, that’s the central question posed by Barack Obama’s candidacy—especially for many African-American voters, whose doubts are informed by having seen many an oasis turn out to be a mirage.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — With respect to Latino voters, politicians find themselves between a surge and a backlash. While popular anti-immigrant rhetoric could help Republicans take back House seats, it could well cost them the presidency.
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AP photo / Gerry Broome
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If Oprah Winfrey can do for politicians what she’s done for books and for any number of consumer items on her “Favorite Things” lists, Barack Obama might have a serious shot at the White House next November. Oprah held court on Sunday at a South Carolina stadium filled with nearly 30,000 Obama supporters, a giant pep rally that “had the feel of a rock concert,” according to Associated Press reporter Seanna Adcox.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Romney’s “religion speech” was touched by brilliance, but it turned off onto a wrong road. Parts of it were frustrating and transparently political, the words of a man with his eye on a prize.
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By Eugene Robinson — One assumes that the front-runner and her inner circle are rethinking their new strategy of singling out the Illinois senator and attacking him on issues of experience, ambition and character. And if they are not, they should be.
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gamecocksonline.cstv.com
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If you think the “Oprah effect” is all hype, you may be interested to learn that the Barack Obama campaign has had to move the location of an upcoming rally featuring the TV talk show host to accommodate the “overwhelming demand.” The new venue is the University of South Carolina’s 80,250-seat Williams-Brice Stadium, pictured here.
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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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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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wcbstv.com
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Barack Obama shared an emptied restaurant and about 45 minutes of conversation with New York mayor and potential presidential bombshell Michael Bloomberg on Friday. A Bloomberg aide implied the meeting was more about sharing ideas than about political aspirations, but at the very least it was a challenge to Hillary Clinton, who would love to have New York and its power brokers all to herself.
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By David Sirota — Through their ethics scandals, Republicans in Washington long ago began making the word conservative synonymous with the term corrupt. Surprisingly, though, it is a group of Democrats that is cementing this definitional conversion for good.
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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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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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villagevoice.com
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Rudy Giuliani likes to pretend that he’s the world’s greatest terrorism fighter, but it turns out that his business empire has contracted with a Qatari sheik who once helped Khalid Sheikh Muhammad escape the FBI. The Village Voice has the goods.
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By Ellen Goodman — Scientists may have found a way to grow stem cells without using embryos. The president’s people are claiming this as a White House victory, causing a flood of gall on Pennsylvania Avenue.
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Sen. Orrin Hatch, the nation’s other big-shot Mormon Republican, has publicly urged Mitt Romney to give a speech putting the issue of his faith to bed. Romney’s advisers, on the other hand, have cautioned him to keep quiet, though they may change their tune in light of a poll indicating that roughly a quarter of Republicans have some reluctance to back a Mormon.
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Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair reveals why he kept a lid on his “profound” religious faith while in office: “You talk about [faith] in our system and, frankly, people do think you’re a nutter.”
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Zogby International has issued a statement in defense of its poll showing Hillary Clinton, unlike Barack Obama and John Edwards, losing to any of the top five Republican candidates. Clinton’s chief political strategist dismissed the survey as “meaningless,” and Zogby shot back, noting that “no other campaign has made as many requests for Zogby polling data over the years than [Mark] Penn has made on behalf of Clinton.”
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By Amy Goodman — The Democrats have gotten in bed with torturers, those who support cruel treatment of military prisoners and some who may have authorized such abuse.
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obama.senate.gov
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With the Iowa caucus fast approaching, the candidates are getting less shy about flinging a little mud. Take this jab from Barack Obama, for example: “There is no doubt that Bill Clinton had faith in [Hillary] and consulted with her on issues, in the same way that I would consult with Michelle. ... On the other hand, I don’t think Michelle would claim that she is the best qualified person to be a United States senator by virtue of me talking to her on occasion about the work I’ve done.”
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By Eugene Robinson — The conventional wisdom says that celebrity endorsements don’t mean much in politics. But the conventional wisdom also says that enormously long, difficult novels published more than a century ago don’t suddenly become best-sellers today.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Kevin Rudd, Australia’s new prime minister, combines iron discipline with a puckish sense of humor, political toughness with a reflective spiritual side, and a youthful disposition with an old pro’s skill at divining where a majority lies.
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satiricalpolitical.com
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Fred Thompson told Chris Wallace of “Fox News Sunday” that his network was biased, charging that criticism against Thompson’s campaign “has been a constant mantra of Fox.” As if to demonstrate the point, Wallace shot back: “Do you know anybody who thinks you’ve run a great campaign, sir?”
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By Joe Conason — Rarely does the endorsement of a presidential candidate make any national impression, especially when offered by a retired local politician. Former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean may well disprove that maxim, however, not so much because he chose McCain but because he rejected Giuliani.
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By Eugene Robinson — Finally, we’ve got a real presidential campaign on our hands. Wake up, those of you in the back row, because it looks as if the long-running seminar is finally over.
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Mike Gravel wasn’t invited to CNN’s Democratic debate last Thursday, but that didn’t stop him from taking on the other candidates anyway, armed with the power of TiVo. What follows is part history lesson and part Howard Beale polemic. Enjoy.
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nytimes.com
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Rudy Giuliani is on the defensive over immigration, which has become this campaign’s hot-button distraction. In response to criticism from his opponents that, as mayor of New York, Giuiani had the audacity not to arrest hospitalized immigrants, the candidate has promised to end illegal immigration within three years. At the center of his strategy is a virtual fence he’d like to build along the U.S.-Mexico border.
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trb.com
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Barack Obama has taken the lead in Iowa, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll. However, his lead is within the poll’s margin of error, so he remains in a statistical tie with Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Much of Obama’s strength may come from “new direction” voters, and the sense that voters have, according to the survey, that he is “the most honest and trustworthy.”
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cnn.com
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Conservative columnist Robert Novak initiated a scuffle between the Clinton and Obama campaigns over the weekend by reporting that “agents” of Hillary Clinton claimed to possess “scandalous” information about Barack Obama. Obama promptly accused the Clinton campaign of trying to “Swift-boat” him and demanded that the front-runner come clean.
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By Andy Borowitz — Campaign-trail satire: Paper? Plastic? Both? Neither? The senator finds it’s hard to do a bit of shopping when a world of voters is looking on.
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The man who turned an inarticulate failed businessman into an inarticulate failed president offers his take on the campaign so far. It’s a real shocker: Rove is impressed by the Republicans, while he finds the Democrats “weak.”
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AP photo / Katsumi Kasahara
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By James Harris — The New York Times columnist brings his liberal conscience and economic expertise to bear on the housing crisis and sheds light on the dirty secret behind many political victories by conservatives: “The consistent source of [Republican] success has been race.”
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By Nicholas von Hoffman — Why is it that so many voters continue to elect reactionaries who do their best to disenfranchise them? The answer, says Paul Krugman in his new book, is racism.
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Just in case anyone forgot that Rudy Giuliani was the mayor of New York on Sept. 11, 2001, or wondered why a former mayor thinks he’s qualified to be president, the candidate has developed something of a “9/11” tick. It turns out he might not be entirely conscious of it.
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robertamsterdam.com
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Although term limits require Russian President Vladimir Putin to step down in May, many, including chess wizard and opposition leader Garry Kasparov, have speculated that he will find some way to maintain his influence. Putin, it seems, agrees, saying that if his party wins the next election, he will have the “moral right to hold those in the Duma and the Cabinet responsible for the implementation” of his policies.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Democrats in Congress are discovering what it’s like to live in the worst of all possible worlds. They are condemned for selling out to President Bush, and for failing to make compromises aimed at getting things done.
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AP photo / Al Grillo
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The federal corruption probe that first blew the lid off the Alaskan political scene a year ago with the discovery of $32,200 in cash stashed away in the home of Republican Pete Kott, former speaker of the Alaskan House of Representatives, has since spread like an oil slick, leaving precious few prominent lawmakers unstained.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The Democratic surge that began in 2006 continued in elections around the country on Tuesday. But how the Democrats won provides a cautionary tale for the national party.
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nytimes.com
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Conservative Christian blowhard Pat Robertson has endorsed Rudy Giuliani for president, possibly giving the candidate a boost with fundamentalist voters. Robertson came to the decision because, as only he could possibly put it: “The overriding issue before the American people is the defense of our population from the blood lust of Islamic terrorists.”
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By Joe Conason — As Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton spar over Social Security, their argument has shed little light on America’s most successful domestic program but has instead revealed unattractive aspects of both candidates.
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By Ellen Goodman — Can anybody tell me what a gender card is anyway and where you buy one? After last week, I’m beginning to think that none of us is playing with a full deck.
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AP photo / Katsumi Kasahara
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New York Times columnist Paul Krugman brings his liberal conscience and economic expertise to bear on the housing crisis and sheds light on the dirty secret behind many political victories by conservatives: “The consistent source of [Republican] success has been race.”
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Real American Boy: How Our Byzantine Immigration System and Failed Economy May Have Made a Terrorist
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