A few hours ago, I received an anguished email from my friend Jeff Goldberg, who was incensed that I’d written this sentence: “It’s another thing entirely to send American kids off to war, yet again, to fight for Israel’s national security.” [emphasis his] Jeff had jumped to a silly conclusion. I was concerned about sending American kids [...]
Uh, also his wardrobe.
Several surveys released over the weekend found Newt Gingrich’s lead erased in Iowa and lessening nationwide. If current trends continue, Ron Paul is well poised to win in Iowa, setting up an Establishment-vs.-insurgency fight with Mitt Romney, which historically hasn’t worked out for the insurgent. But whatever happens, it’s instructive to look at why Newt’s Icarian flight to the top of the GOP primary polls is ending.
To understand just how hard it is for the Obama Administration or anyone else to predict what the death of Kim Jong Il will bring to North Korea, it helps to understand just what a backward, out-of-touch place that country is. Having raided my mid-’90s notes to flesh out Jim Jackson’s excellent obituary of Vaclav [...]
Congress is an institution built on traditions: bean soup in the Senate cafeteria; two-century-old desks; strict legislative procedures. But during the presidency of Barack Obama, Congress has added one more, less beloved ritual: the annual yuletide negotiating meltdown that leaves its members stranded in Washington in late December.
Two weeks out, and Iowa is doing its Iowa thing–anyone, and I mean anyone, can win these caucuses. We’ve seen late surges before–Obama and Huckabee in 2008, Kerry in 2004 and so forth–but this is a case where multiple candidates are neck and neck, something I haven’t seen since the Democratic race in 1988.
Kim Jong Il is dead. North Korea awaits succession. The House GOP revolts on payroll tax cut extension. Ron Paul leads in Iowa, Newt is sinking like a stone.
Bill Clinton’s impeachment may have riveted the country for more than a year, but today it feels like ancient political history. And yet the prospect of Newt Gingrich as the Republican presidential nominee has some people wondering whether we’re in store for another long and ferocious argument about the wisdom–or extreme idiocy–of impeaching the President over his affair with a White House intern.
The Des Moines Register has a comprehensive piece today about all the terrible things that could happen to Newt Gingrich between now and the caucuses, but the real news of the morning was the interviews that Romney gave Fox and Gingrich gave CBS–together, they represent a perfect distillation of what the Republican presidential race is [...]
