Bloggingletters

A kind reader raised a good question about my “Bloggingheads” stare-down with Glenn Greenwald. Looking back, I agree I was a little too blase about BBQ-Style coverage of politics. Though there is a more appropriate food-based metaphor available! He’s kindly allowed me to reproduce our discussion here. Key quote: The media marketplace is like a [...]

McCain Camp Calls Obama “Dishonest” UPDATED THRICE!

IN FLIGHT–Air McCain is officially flying on a week-long bio-tour, intended to reintroduce the candidate to America, as a man shaped by service and country. But as McCain’s charter flight hopped between Maryland and Florida Wednesday, his advisers left no doubt that the general election has already begun. “The lofty rhetoric,” said Steve Schmidt, McCain’s [...]

SWAMPLAND EXCLUSIVE!! McCain Reacts to Heidi Montag Endorsement!

PENSACOLA, FL. Asked for a reaction to the news that he’d been endorsed by reality-soap bad girl Heidi Montag of “The Hills,” John McCain told Swampland: “I’m honored to have Heidi’s support and I want to assure her that I never miss an episode of ‘The Hills,’ especially since the new season started.”

In the Arena

Too Many Kagans, Too Little Knowledge

Fresh from his assertion that the Iraq civil war was “over” a week ago, here’s Fred–plus added bonus attraction Kimberly–Kagan reinforcing their profoundly warped view of Iraq in the Weekly Standard. There are several truly disingenuous, and flat out misleading, things here: 1. The promulgation of the myth that Maliki’s Folly was to clean out [...]

The Yoo Memo

We have known for some time the general contents of the 81-page memo offering a legal rationale for extreme interrogation techniques that John Yoo of the Justice Department wrote and sent to the Pentagon’s top lawyer on March 13, 2003. We’ve known that it proclaimed the President of the United States to be almost entirely [...]

In the Arena

You Begin to Wonder…

Why can’t the Big Dog–a supremely talented one-on-one politician known for avoiding confrontations–control himself?

Obama Looks For The Philly Union Label

I don’t want to make too much about size. But Obama’s room at this Pennsylvania AFL-CIO conference is a third larger than Clinton’s, though this room is much airier – Clinton’s was packed cheek-to-jowl. Obama did his best to get the crowd “Fired Up and Ready to Go.” He even told that Greenwood, South Carolina [...]

Another Big Endorsement for Obama

We have often argued here in Swampland over whether endorsements really “matter.” But some of them have meaning that goes beyond whether they actually move any votes. Back in the latter half of the Reagan era, when I was a brand-new reporter to Washington covering Capitol Hill, the Speaker of the House’s press secretary–an excitable [...]