McCain Does a “Full Cheney”

Over at Slate, our former TIME colleague John Dickerson writes that John McCain’s speech today may indeed have been a turning point: What’s new here is obviously not McCain’s unhedged support for the war. He’s talked about that at length. What makes this speech different is the full-force, no-caveats attack on his opponents. It went [...]

Imus: Another Shoe Drops

MSNBC fires him, and his advertisers are jumping ship. Will WFAN and CBS follow? Dead-tree TIME will have more to say on this controversy.

Discomfited, Again

Yes, if Fred Thompson jumps into the race for president, the decision would discomfit* me. He has cancer; he has two small children. I would wonder about Thompson’s priorities. Every candidate makes sacrifices when he or she runs for president, and many would-be candidates decide against running because they feel the sacrifices, especially for their [...]

Re: Hillary Weighs In

Hmmm…and right next to that Respect for Rutgers/”Send a Message” link on her website is a big red one that says CONTRIBUTE. Sisterhood is powerful. UPDATE: Those Clinton people are quick–and obviously close followers of this blog. Mere minutes after posting this, I got a call from Phil Singer over at the Clinton campaign, who [...]

Hillary Weighs In

New York’s junior senator has put out a statement condemning Imus’ remarks. She also has a link on her web site that allows visitors to “send a message of respect and support” to the young women of Rutgers. Smart.

UPDATE: Fred Thompson

He has put up his own blogpost on the subject of his health, which includes his doctor’s statement.

Regarding Imus

I’ll have some more fleshed-out thoughts on the matter in the magazine this week, but for now, since many people have asked: No, I won’t be going on Imus anymore. Having said that, it’s not like they’ll be inviting me back.

Over There Over Here

This guy I know has another whip-smart piece in the New York Observer this week; this one is about the Orwellian fake debate the Rs tried to gin up last week over Ds decision to use a more specific phrase than “the global war on terrorism” in appropriations language: Fox News producers got in on [...]

Fred Thompson

In the old way of doing things, people who were thinking seriously about running for President–from FDR, to JFK, to Paul Tsongas–kept their health problems secret. But these days, candidates know that bad news rarely stays secret, and that it’s best to get it out themselves. That’s why everyone I’ve talked to in Republican circles [...]

In the Arena

More on McCain

Just read an advance text of McCain’s Iraq speech and–sorry, Ana–he gives absolutely no quarter. In fact, there’s a fair amount of cheesy Democrat-bashing amidst the high-minded, continuing support for the war and defeat of the terrorists and all that. (No surprise there: this is a speech directed primarily at the Republican base, not the [...]