The McCain campaign would much rather have the story about phony and foolish diversions than about the future. . . . We have real problems in this country right now and the American people are looking to us for answers, not distractions, not diversions, not manipulations. — Barack Obama, Norfolk, Va., September 10, 2008 President [...]

The former House Speaker (and TIME’s 1995 Man of the Year) seems to be everywhere these days, including on the cover of last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. But I really got a flashback when I saw his full-page ad this morning in the Wall Street Journal, citing 12 AMERICAN SOLUTIONS FOR JOBS AND PROSPERITY, [...]

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus held a session with reporters this morning at the Kaiser Family Foundation offices in Washington to give us an update on where things stand with health care reform. Here’s my account of it for TIME.com. Baucus told us that the debate over health care reform is going to be [...]

Gordon Brown may have had even more reason to be nervous about his first date with Obama today. A month ago, when Tony Blair and Obama co-headlined the National Prayer Breakfast, the British press was all abuzz about whether the appearance amounted to a dis of Brown. He would have preferred, after all, not to [...]

British journalists are swarming the White House today, and they are all obsessed with the same thing: Does Obama like England, or does he, you know, really like England, as a special kind of friend? I wrote about it below. It’s kind of pathetic. But then it must be hard begging favor from a former [...]

Here’s a fun, light story from me for your Tuesday afternoon. I’m on the Hill today at the Senate’s weekly policy lunches, and in case you’re really a glutton for punishment you can follow my coverage of the lunches on twitter (God help us all). 

Ok, I’m in crisis, existentially stressed. Unlike other Swamplanders, I can’t bring myself to twitter. I’m not sure I quite understand what it is…except that it’s another thing. And I’m still trying to figure out the various things I have. On the other hand, I don’t want to fall behind. I mean, if everybody’s twittering… [...]

I have no idea why anyone would want another way to find out what I am thinking at any given moment, or for that matter why I need another way to communicate those thoughts, but I have like a lost lemming craving a cliff jump joined the herd and started posting Twitter updates. (Even worse, [...]

I know I am late on this, but every American should take note of the incredible ne0-Orwellian, near-totalitarian powers that President Bush’s Justice Department granted the White House in the days after September 11, according to new memos that were released Monday. They are certainly not based on a “conservative” limited government reading of the [...]