In this edition, I talk about how both Obama and Hillary face the problem of having welcomed aboard black leaders whose stands on gay issues are not as, well, enlightened as those of the candidate. (Obama’s problem talked about here. Hillary’s has been endorsed by* met with and received glowing reviews from Rev. Harold Mayberry, [...]

By Brooks Kraft, and featured today on our White House photo blog:

Nation editor Amy Sullivan has some further thoughts on Huckabee’s performance at the Family Research Council shin-dig last weekend. When Pat Robertson ran for the Republican nomination in 1988, he went out of his way to downplay his identity as a religious leader, emphasizing instead his television network and other business ventures. Nearly 20 years [...]

I think Tim Russert is used to making people squirm, but it’s usually not the viewers. His interview yesterday was painfully so-ironic-it-was-unironic, and induced the kind of cringes you usually associate with Larry Craig: NBC Meet the Press Netcast Russert tried way too hard, Colbert maybe not hard enough, or maybe there’s something about “fake [...]

The New York Post has an intriguing story today about the sensitivity that Rudy Giuiani feels about the ongoing probe of Giuliani’s disgraced pal and former NYPD Police Chief Bernard Kerik. (Giuliani, you probably recall, helped engineer the Bush White House’s nomination of Kerik to be Homeland Security Director, which had to be withdrawn when [...]

This is not especially fair, but it makes a good point:

After the petty and vindictive outing of Valerie Wilson, sure, this makes me feel a lot better about the professionalism of the CIA: Either the war on terror has been reduced to the level of coughing politely or we’re going to start sending smokers to Gitmo. Via CopyRanter and More, Better Lies

This just in from the Capitol Police: “Demonstrators are currently blocking entrances and intersections on the House side of the Capitol complex. Numerous arrested are being made. USCP will continue to monitor demonstration activity on Capitol Grounds.” The protesters, in town for the IMF meeting, apparently are unaware that hardly anyone they are trying to [...]

Fareed Zakaria is absolutely right about the prevailing nuttiness with regard to Iran. UPDATE: To those commenters who want to know when I’m going to join the campaign against Ahmadinejad-inflation and Iran-warmongering, the fact is I’ve been banging this drum for at least a year, most recently in this column. I linked to Fareed’s column [...]