Rep. Anthony Weiner called House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Steve Israel Wednesday night to inform them that he will be resigning from Congress. The last month has seen Weiner tweet a lewd picture to a 21-year-old …
Controversies
As Weiner Takes Leave of Absence, Democratic Brass Call for Him to Go
Top Democrats including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Steve Israel called for the resignation of New York Congressman Anthony Weiner on Saturday, less than a week …
Weiner’s Chorus of Critics Includes Plenty of Democrats
The Anthony Weiner apology tour is not going well. Two days after the weepy press conference at which Weiner copped to swapping inappropriate online messages with multiple women, the chorus of Democrats criticizing him continues …
Contrite and Not Quite Defiant, Can Anthony Weiner Survive Scandal?
The first crush of the crowd was toward the accuser, not the accused. Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart was swarmed by reporters as he entered the royal blue third-floor ballroom of the Sheraton hotel in Midtown Manhattan on …
Weinergate Unravels: The Congressman Denies the Tweet Was His, but Can’t Place the Picture
President Obama clashed with House Republicans at a White House confab, the Dow plummeted amid heightening fears of a catastrophic default and new reports revealed anemic job growth. Meanwhile, Washington spent its Wednesday atwitter over Chris Christie’s helicopter, the Palin-Trump pizza summit and Anthony Weiner’s Twitter …
Weinergate: Anatomy of a Social Media Scandal
We ink-stained wretches have a habit of hyping the new new thing. We speculate breathlessly about the next model of iPhone, turn the NFL draft into a three-day spectacle, deploy packs of reporters to tail a Fox News commentator on a family bus tour of the mid-Atlantic. This tendency is particularly strong when it dovetails with our gift …
Lingering Questions from the John Ensign Files
The lurid revelations from the Senate Ethics Committee’s report on John Ensign’s alleged cover-up of an extramarital affair have raised a battery of questions, including why the Department of Justice and Federal Election …
Ensign Ethics Charges Referred to Justice Department and FEC, Lurid Details Emerge
The Senate Ethics Committee released a report Thursday afternoon alleging that former Sen. John Ensign broke federal laws in a cover-up of the extramarital affair that torpedoed his once-promising career.
Should We Have Captured bin Laden?
In recent days, the assumption that Osama bin Laden should have been killed on the spot has gone almost unquestioned. People understandably wanted the bastard dead. He might have escaped a capture attempt. A strong case can be made for the legality of killing him. Imprisonment and trial of the world’s most notorious terrorist would have …
Republicans Split Over Waterboarding’s Role in bin Laden’s Death
Steve King was the first member of Congress to float the inevitable question. “Wonder what President Obama thinks of waterboarding now?” the Iowa Republican tweeted shortly after Obama announced the death of the world’s most infamous terrorist. In the days since, even as they maintain the tacit truce that bans partisan potshots in the …
Why Was bin Laden Shot?, Cont’d
I want to add a couple of follow-up thoughts to my post yesterday about the exact circumstances under which Osama bin Laden was killed.
First, it’s clear that some people have misconstrued my post as an argument against killing bin Laden. That’s not my point. I’m more interested here in how the White House is describing the intent of …
If bin Laden Was Unarmed, Why Was He Shot?
Updated 3:02 p.m.
A major question lingers unanswered at the center of this story: Why was bin Laden killed? Michael Scherer has reported that the Navy Seals who landed at Osama bin Laden’s safehouse were not given orders specifically to kill, but were on a “kill or capture” mission. That implies they were prepared to accept bin …
Conservatives Go After Another Obama Pastor
The Obamas ended up attending Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington’s Shaw neighborhood (and three blocks from my house–thanks for the wake-up via low-flying security helicopters, Mr. President) for Easter services on Sunday. Obama himself has said that the First Family doesn’t plan on joining a Washington-area church, so this was just a …