In the Arena

O’Reilly Unhinged

As Swampland readers know, I’ve had my problems with Kos and Kossacks, but this is ridiculous. Has O’Reilly hired Colbert as a ghost writer? For the record, I think the Democratic candidates should show up at Kos…and also at the Southern Baptist Convention, West Point, Jerry Falwell’s church and any place else where they can [...]

Wither the YouTube Debate?

A longer story looking at the possibilities of the GOP unplugging here. A slight clarification, if not correction: I make a little crack about Romney in the piece confusing MySpace and YouTube, and the Romney campaign contacted me to point out that the Governor has made the same point — about online predators — numerous [...]

FOH = Fearful of Hillary

Not that long ago, it was a widely held opinion among conservatives in the professional political class that Hillary Clinton would be a dream Democratic presidential nominee — for the Republicans. Her high negatives, divisive personality, weak political skills, excess baggage and reputation as a big government lefty would all combine to make her the [...]

Hillary Embraces Her Inner Breck Girl

“Hillary Addresses 88th National Beauty Culturists’ League Convention Tonight“ Via HillaryHub.com, which lacks permalinks and and an archive for its front-page images. UPDATE: Rag on me all you want for not being serious, but keep in mind that this image and bit of news came from the Hillary campaign, who actually lobbied me to post [...]

Pseudo-Hillary vs. Pseudo-Barack, Part One of Kajillion

Prepare yourselves, American public, you are going to see a lot of these two people for the next few months, which will soon begin to feel like the rest of your life. Perhaps the most remarkable thing in this debate is the tacit agreement on both sides that comparing Hillary to Bush/Cheney is new lowest [...]

Mitt: Americans Are Angry, But Don’t Want Change

That, in essence, is what Romney said this morning to some Iowans. I guess he’s not reading those right track/wrong direction numbers too closely. I’m not sure that his observation about Americans’ anger over Iraq amounted to a “stinging assessment of the Bush administration’s handling of the conflict from a Republican candidate,” which is how [...]

In the Arena

Our Friends the Saudis

This has been building for four years now. From the start of the war, the standard Saudi/Sunni position was: We don’t like Saddam, but we’ll live with him. If you’re going to take him out, though, replace him–quickly–with a reliable Sunni general. (I heard a variation on that line in visits to the following countries: [...]

RE: Debate Going Down the YouTube?

To add a little more to what Joe and I are wondering: Though some in the media have suspect that Fox is somehow behind the GOP’s ditching of the debate (and yes, I mused about it outloud), the campaigns I spoke to insist that Fox has nothing to do with it. One staffer, however, did [...]

In the Arena

Debate Going Down the YouTube?

As I feared, the Republicans are getting skittish about participating in their CNN/YouTube debate. The New York Post is reporting today that Rudy Giuliani isn’t going to play. My guess is, more to follow. Too bad. OOOPS: I missed Ana’s earlier post on this. Kudos to her.