Promises, Promises

In this morning’s Clinton conference call, perennial HRC antagonist Andrea Mitchell pressed the campaign’s spokespeople about Hillary’s firm promise to withdraw from Iraq even if, as Gibson put it, “the military commanders in Iraq came to you on day one and said this kind of withdrawal would destabilize Iraq, it would set back all of [...]

Not to Flog a Dead Horse…

But I found it a glaring omission in last night’s debate that trade was not addressed at all. The moderators managed to dwell on why Obama doesn’t wear a lapel pin but there was nary a mention of the collapse of Columbian Colombian Free Trade deal in Congress (or the fact that Mark Penn had [...]

The Debate That Didn’t Happen

ABC has just put out this news, like it’s, you know, a good thing: Ratings Report: ABC News Programming ABC News-National Constitution Center-WPVI-TV’s Democratic Presidential Debate ABC News’ Debate Is Most-Watched of 2008 Presidential Cycle 10.7 Million Total Viewers Tune In to Democratic Debate Program Outperforms Previous Debate Viewing High by Double Digits Among Total [...]

Debate Mysteries

I missed the first part of the ABC trivia bowl; I assume that’s when they made the disclaimer that George Stephanopoulos used to work for Hillary, right? UPDATE: Not endorsing the contents, just passing along this artifact from the Obamaverse.

In the Arena

A Lousy Debate…plus Latest Column

I have slightly–well, a microscopic smidgeon–more sympathy for the gotcha-moderators from ABC than Tom Shales does. As Karen points out below, Michael Grunwald does a good job limning the banalities elsewhere on this site. But I think Stephanopoulos and Gibson were doing what journalists do: they picked the most obvious scabs. They asked trivial questions [...]

Last Night’s Debate

Don’t miss our colleague Michael Grunwald’s excellent critique.