A year ago most reporters were writing John Ensign’s political obituary. The Nevada senator had admitted to an affair with a longtime staffer and was under investigation by the feds for payments his parents made to the staffer’s husband to allegedly keep him quiet. Many in Nevada wondered why Ensign didn’t step aside and allow a …
Bristol Palin Memoir?
Her life has been relatively short for a memoir, but if Amazon.com is to be believed one is in the works. The dancing! The dish on Levi! Buy it now for only $17.15.
Obama To Chamber: Please Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
About 16 months ago, Barack Obama’s White House launched a frontal assault on its neighbor across Lafayette Square, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett laid out a strategy that bypassed the chamber by reaching out directly to corporate CEOs, who Jarrett called “the actual people who are on the front lines, …
Old Guard Dems Are Asking Themselves: Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Rep. Jane Harman, a California Blue Dog Dem is going, she announced today, to head up the Woodrow Wilson Center. Also leaving: Senators Kent Conrad and Joe Lieberman.
Staying thus far are Reps. John Dingell, John Conyers and Barney Frank — all of whom have already announced their plans to run again. If this seems rather early, it’s …
What Obama Can Say On Guns
Guns are as charged a topic as ever. But when the President takes up the issue in the near future, as aides have indicated he’ll do, there are a multitude of measures he can endorse without endangering himself politically. Here’s my story on Time.com.
Hillary Clinton Makes It Clear
Through luck or skill or a combination of the two, the Obama administration has seen things go its way over the last week in Egypt. With limited influence, a huge amount at stake and a variety of potential outcomes that ranged from bad to disastrous, the White House and State department have watched as events unfolded along the path onto …
In Choosing Between Realism and Idealism, On Egypt President Obama Appears More A Realist
In late 2009, in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, President Obama argued that the the choice between foreign policy realism and foreign policy idealism was a false one, calling it “a tension that suggests a stark choice between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our values around the world.” In his …
Morning Must Reads: Realism
(REUTERS/Larry Downing)
–Egyptian VP Omar Suleiman talks with opposition groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood.
–The Obama administration wants Mubarak gone, just not too quickly.
–As conditions in Egypt have shifted so to has the U.S. response. David Sanger writes the inconsistencies illustrate an unprepared …
Is 2012 Politics Behind Obama’s No Pick For The 2011 Superbowl?
In 2009, the Pittsburgh Steelers made it to the Superbowl, with the Arizona Cardinals, and President Obama made no secret of his pick. “I have to say, you know, I wish the Cardinals the best,” he said. “Kurt Warner is a great story and he’s closer to my age than anybody else on the field, but I am a long-time Steelers fan. Mr. Rooney, …
Watch Tunisia
The ouster of Ben Ali went comparatively smoothly back in mid-January, but things have taken a turn for the worse. Violence broke out over the weekend, the coalition government’s interior ministry froze the activities of Ben Ali’s political party, and the White House is keeping a wary eye on developments. Which raises again the question …
Did Obama Sellout Britain To Russia On Sub Nukes? Nope, Says State Department
Conservative blogs and the British press are agog over a report in London’s Daily Telegraph that the U.S. provided certain information about the United Kingdom’s submarine-based nuclear missile stockpile to Russia as part of recent arms negotiations. Matt Drudge nearly blew a siren on the “Secret Deal” report, which includes no quotes …
Palin’s Populist Message
UPDATED
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Sarah Palin wants Americans to know they have a choice before them. “We are at a cross roads,” she said in a speech last night at the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara marking Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday. …
In the ArenaUncategorized
How Long, Glenn Beck, How Long?
The most interesting sideshow during Egypt’s convulsion has been among American conservatives, who are slicing themselves into interesting subgroups over whether to support the demonstrators. As I’ve written here previously, a great many neoconservatives are sticking to their intellectual guns, supporting democracy in Egypt even at the
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