Early in the 2008 presidential cycle, I followed then ex-Virginia Gov. Mark Warner around a Las Vegas casino. He kept saying phrases like “Transformative change as opposed to incremental change.” It was at about that moment that I decided the adjective “transformative” does not mean anything in politics. It only sounds like it means …
2012 Election
Badda Bam
Sure, last week’s dramatic arrests in New Jersey of 44 people including three mayors, two state assemblymen and five rabbis wasn’t great news for the already embattled Jon Corzine. On the other hand, Corzine’s pegging his campaign to New Jersey’s economy, so what does he care?
At least someone’s having fun with it:
[vodpod …
Not So Fast
Just as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus was heading to the mircophones yesterday to announce that “things are looking good” for his group of six bipartisan negotiators, one of those negotiators, Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi, the top Republican on the HELP Committee, was putting out this statement:
Subject: Enzi: Deal Far From
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Shatner Is Back, With Palin Tweets (So Are The Beats)
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Let it be known: As fun as these are, the new tweets are not as good as the old beats. After the jump, Jack Kerouac reads “On The Road” on the Steve Allen Show in 1959. (What a host, Steve Allen. Come on Conan, play the piano.)
Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska
So, Sarah Palin, as planned, is no longer a public official. She went out with a few fireworks yesterday:
And first, some straight talk for some, just some in the media because another right protected for all of us is freedom of the press, and you all have such important jobs reporting facts and informing the electorate, and exerting
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Biden: To Russia, With No Love
Vice President Joe Biden was in Ukraine and Georgia last week to reassure the former U.S.S.R. counties that President Obama’s emphasis on rebuilding relations with Moscow doesn’t mean that U.S. has forgotten about their sovereignty. On the way home, Biden had some colorful comments for the Wall Street Journal:
“Russia has to make
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Hatch to Vote No on Sotomayor
Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, one of the top Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, today said he would not vote for President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor. The decision is a surprising blow to Sotomayor as Hatch not only voted for the last 12 nominees to the bench — Republican or Democrat — but he also …
Graham Becomes 5th* Republican for Sotomayor
When President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor made her rounds on Capitol Hill, one of her harshest critics was South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham who said after that first meeting that he was “deeply troubled” by her nomination. Something must have happened on the way to the hearings last week because on …
Palin Faces Ethics Questions
It’s not quite the other shoe everyone was waiting to drop, but Alaska Governor (for the next four days) Sarah Palin is facing some ethics questions about the Alaska Fund Trust, a fund she started to raise money to pay for legal fees to defend against ethics complaints.
An independent report commissioned by the state’s Personnel …
Health Care: Obama Engages More Deeply
Is Barack Obama finally channeling LBJ to save his health reform initiative? As we’ve noted before, the President until now has stayed away from the nitty-gritty of the negotiations on Capitol Hill, largely because he wants to avoid the mistakes that the Clintons made in 1993, when they tried to dictate to Congress precisely how to …
Sarah Palin Ascendant? Maybe. Still A Factor? You Betcha.
Gallup has new numbers out today, testing the 2012 GOP waters. Polls this early in an election cycle are in no way predictive of eventual results, but they are telling for other reasons. At the very least, we now know that Sarah Palin’s up-and-quit spectacle of the last couple weeks has not hurt her much among GOP voters.
Health Care: Which Chart Scares You More?
House Minority Leader John Boehner, borrowing a tactic from the health care wars of 15 years ago, has put together an arresting graphic “to expose the truth about the Democrats’ health care plan to the American people.” Over at TNR, Jon Cohn has responded with one that looks at how things work now. I’m posting both of them below. Which is scarier?
Sotomayor’s Aristotle
Most lawyers (and any one who’s seen Legally Blonde) know well Aristotle’s famous phrase: The law is reason free from passion.