ABC’s Terry Moran looks kinda like a, um, donkey this morning, after reporting via Twitter that President Obama had called Kanye West a “jackass” yesterday, after West disrupted the MTV music awards in a typical fit of self-absorption. Obama’s “jackass” utterance came during an off the record exchange with CNBC. ABC News has apologized …
2012 Election
The Afghanistan Paradox
This war has come to be inexorably linked to this President. He likes to say that he’s “taking the fight” to the terrorists because it’s “fundamental to the defense of our people.” His strong supporters include Karl Rove, John McCain and Sarah Palin. In Congress, Democratic leaders grate at the idea of granting him more …
Protests
From TIME’s Sophia Yan:
Ripples of protesters, thousands of them of all ages, lined Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Capitol Saturday. Deafening chants could be heard, from “You lie, you lie!” echoing South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s Wednesday speech to plaintive
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Is Obama Only Reaching Out to Dems?
Here’s a story from me about the latest in the Senate on health care reform. I was surprised to hear that the White House hasn’t been wooing any other moderate Republicans aside from Maine’s Olympia Snowe:
During the summer of discontent the White House stopped reaching out to some key potential votes: the other senator from Maine,
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Teddy’s Letter
After the jump, the text of Teddy Kennedy’s letter that President Obama cited in the speech. Also, Obama will host a group of bipartisan Senate centrists tomorrow — including, Michael Scherer reports from the Hill, Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson — at the White House to talk about health care.
Obama’s Remarks
Read along after the jump. Members named: John Dingell, John McCain, Ted Kennedy, Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley.
Dodd Stays at Banking*
Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has decided to stay at the helm of the Banking Committee. Dodd was the next-most-senior senator on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee after Ted Kennedy – whose desk remains shrouded in black on the Senate floor and adourned with flowers as colleagues mourn his passing. Dodd could’ve …
Pelosi’s Box
Forget the Senate, here’s a story from me about what’s going on in the House on health care. House leaders have pulled back from their once-aggressive schedule. “I have no timetable” for passage of a bill, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters yesterday. While eschewing the idea that they would wait for the Senate to …
If You Repeat A Lie Often Enough…
It’s still a lie.
Sarah Palin is back on “death panels” in the Wall Street Journal.
UPDATE: Worth reading her circular logic in this justification for making things up. Apparently, it was okay to spread a falsehood, because people actually believed it: Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans.
Barack Obama’s Education Speech: The Not-At-All Socialist Indoctrination
At this point, most of the noise about Barack Obama wanting to indoctrinate school children in a back-to-school speech has mostly faded from view. Newt Gingrich has repudiated it. Historians (and White House aides) have pointed out that past Republican presidents–George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan–delivered the same sorts of messages. …
Re: Health Care: Hitting the Re-Set Button
Following up on Karen’s excellent post on President Obama forthcoming address to a joint session of Congress on health care reform. Obama has always fallen back on his rhetorical gifts – and, generally, it has worked, even when Rev. Wright looked to doom his campaign. Next Wednesday he will again give what will surely be an inspirational …
Bipartisan Health Care Talks Push On
Just when you thought the vultures had landed on a bipartisan health care deal, seems the three GOP senators haven’t totally walked away from the table. First, there was the news this morning on Olympia Snowe’s talks with the White House on a compromise and then Mike Enzi put out this statement:
“My position has been consistent from
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The Rise And Fall Of Levi Johnston
I fell into watching “Don’t Look Back” last night, the great documentary of Bob Dylan’s 1965 tour through England. Dylan never cared much for the press, even though, as the movie showed, he read the tabloids voraciously and spent a ton to time giving interviews. (He expresses this view in an extended verbal assault on a TIME magazine …