It’s always a bad sign when a candidate for President of the United States makes the case that he is actually doing worse in the polls than he is. Here is Tim Pawlenty on Fox News Sunday: CHRIS WALLACE: You, as we just said, are third in the polls now, somewhat distant, but you are [...]
On July 10, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner left little doubt that the rumors of his impending departure were not without basis. Asked on NBC’s Meet The Press if he would stay on with the administration until the end of Obama’s first term, Geithner replied, “For the foreseeable future.” Then he added cryptically, “Well, foreseeable is, [...]
I suspect that this piece by Drew Westen is going to cause a ruckus. Certainly, it will crystallize the concern in the Democratic Party about Barack Obama. A lot of us have been picking around the edges of the problem of Obama’s curiously unsatisfying presidency–I’ve written more than twice about the President’s failure to directly take on [...]
Over at the Curious Capitalist, Steve Gandel offers an approving take on Standard & Poor’s downgrade of U.S. debt. “The ratings agency’s decision on Friday to downgrade the credit rating of the U.S. government to AA+ from AAA — stripping the U.S. of the highest rating for the first time in 70 years — was [...]
Given its fabulously incompetent and quite possibly corrupt performance in the events leading up to the 2008 financial collapse, it takes a fair amount of chutzpah for Standard and Poor’s to downgrade US treasuries, especially after the debt ceiling deal proved that back-against-the-wall compromise can still be had in American politics, however unsatisfying the deal. This [...]
S&P’s downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt from AAA to AA+ though symbolically and politically powerful, was already destined to be met with skepticism in New York and DC. The fact that the beleaguered rating agency managed to make a $2 trillion error in calculating the size of the U.S. debt only made matters worse: Around [...]
TIME’s photo editors bring you the best pictures of the past week, from the Beltway and beyond.
The political news hole situated between Washington’s debt deal and the run-up to Iowa’s straw poll is being filled up by stories on the Texas governor in part because things are slow, no one else is running around renting out stadiums or getting experimental stem cell treatments, but mostly because of the orbit-altering effect his [...]
–President Obama commenting on July’s tepid-but-not-apocalyptic jobs numbers.
We know that “The Response,” the all-day prayer gathering that Rick Perry is hosting with the American Family Association, is scheduled to take place on Saturday in Houston. But at this point, that’s about the only certainty regarding the event. Here are four key things I’ll be looking for on Saturday, and why they matter: How [...]
