In the new dead-tree TIME, our colleague Michael Weisskopf explores Barack Obama’s political roots in Chicago, which is where the likely Democratic nominee learned what it felt like to lose and what it takes to win. Michael brings a special understanding to rough-and-tumble Chicago politics and its crosscurrents of ethnic identity. A …

I received a vivid email this morning from someone I know who finds himself in Beirut amid the escalating clashes between pro-Hezbollah and pro-government forces. Paul du Quenoy is a professor, most recently at the American University in Cairo, who is moving to teach at the American University in Beirut in the fall, conditions …

The Pentagon has released all of the documents that it turned over to the NYT for their story on the retired military officers that play both sides of the analyst/contractor fence. TPM has some excerpts, including audio of, well, a pep rally:

It was an emergency meeting called because earlier in the month, several retired generals had

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Is Saturday Night Live a news show?

SNL Politics launched this week, an archive of all of your favorite broad topical sketch comedy scenes! It’s still a little underdeveloped (the actual “archives” don’t seem to work), but as the only network show that tried to correct for overly fond coverage of Obama, their sweet-tart take will be a …

No, you say? Then why, in a survey last year, was he ranked one of the most admired journalists in America? (I know, I know — many of you think “admired journalist” is a contradiction in terms). A lot of Americans get their news, or a portion of it, from Stewart and Colbert (and Leno, Letterman and O’Brien). But how does The Daily Show …