As several bloggers have rightly noted, I erred yesterday on MSNBC when discussing Karen Tumulty’s piece about the Obama campaign’s efforts to combat rumors and smears. I said the rumor about Michelle Obama making a derogatory comment about whites was started by conservative bloggers. That was a mistake. As Tumulty wrote in her piece, the [...]

Howard Dean and the DNC are all excited about Fox News Channel Shepard Smith’s admission after last night’s New York “town hall” that tickets to the event had been distributed by the McCain campaign, the New York Mayor’s office and some independent groups. For the DNC outrage factory this was, um, outrageous. [Note to media [...]

PEMBERTON, N.J.–I am still sitting in a John McCain town hall, so have not had time to transcribe the full quotes, but wanted to post this quick. After a day of consideration, the McCain Campaign has decided to come out hard against yesterday’s 5 to 4 decision to grant more rights to court review for [...]

TIME’s own James Poniewozik, a self-described “dude,” lays out the “archipelago” of charges of media sexism in the coverage of Hillary Clinton. Worth the read. An excerpt: The critique is a kind of rhetorical island-hopping, trying to connect the demonstrable to the arguable to the unprovable to the far-fetched. To wit: * Many commentators said [...]

Brussels Defense Secretary Robert Gates made a striking point at the NATO ministerial conference here last night: In May, for the first time, there were more coalition deaths in Afghanistan (18, including 13 Americans) than there were in Iraq (16, including 14 Americans). He used this to urge our European allies to start meeting their [...]

Interesting statement today from Iraq’s prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. The Status of Forces Agreement with the U.S. seems to be in some trouble: “We can’t extend the U.S. forces permission to arrest Iraqis or to undertake the responsibility of fighting terrorism in an independent way, or to keep Iraqi skies and waters open for themselves [...]

The endless and insufferable presidential candidate guilt-by-association game may have finally led to a big story. Appropriately enough, the story has little to do with either of the campaigns. The business magazine Portfolio is reporting today that Jim Johnson, the former VP vetter for Barack Obama, was not the only person of note who received [...]

In this week’s dead-tree TIME, I have a story on how it is usually done.

The reputable and non-partisan Tax Policy Center has done a preliminary evaluation of the Obama and McCain tax plans. Some highlights: 1. Both cut revenue significantly. “Although both candidates have at times stressed fiscal responsibility, their specific non-health tax proposals would reduce tax revenues by $3.7 trillion (McCain) and $2.7 trillion (Obama) over the next [...]