Controlling The McCain Medical Release (Updated w/ McCain Campaign Response)
No one releases a new type of toothpaste on the Friday before Memorial Day. It is what news editors and marketing reps consider a publicity black hole, a time when the nation’s attention turns from televisions and newspapers to filling swimming pools and driving to the beach. So it is no accident that the much delayed release of John …
This Is Your Brain on God
Pew has posted the transcript of the panel I attended on religion and the brain. Andy Newberg’s opening talk is fascinating, and David Brooks junkies can read a re-mixed version of his “Neural Buddhism” column from last week. There are also pictures! Very striking how many people are wearing pink. Politics is a large subtopic of …
In the ArenaUncategorized
Against Accuracy, For Trivia
I’m mentioned in two columns today with similar themes: that people like me–the liberal elite media, we’re called–are playing into Obama’s hands by insisting on accuracy from John McCain (according to Bob Novak) and by hoping that, given the mess we’re in, this can be an election about big issues (Steven Stark).
Novak writes:
McCain’s
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Kennedy’s Unfinished Agenda
Here’s a web story on Kennedy’s very full plate. In researching about brain tumors I came across some interesting, if not terribly relevant to Kennedy’s case, tidbits from the Senate Historian’s Office. There have been at least two other senators this century who also suffered from tumors, unfortunately both died in office.
The …
In the ArenaUncategorized
Latest Column
On McCain’s foreign policy…in the print edition.
Underplayed Story of the Day
I wish the Washington Post had given more prominence to this A7 story of the efforts of career Justice Department officials to speak up against the torture of Guantanamo detainees. Among them:
Bruce C. Swartz, a criminal division deputy in charge of international issues, repeatedly questioned the effectiveness of harsh interrogation
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Let The Games Begin…
The NYT’s Nagourney reports:
Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, on Friday is scheduled to meet with two Republican governors who have been prominently mentioned as potential running mates, according to Republicans familiar with Mr. McCain’s plan.
Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida, and Bobby
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The Bluegrass Vote
Commentator Mike M. got me thinking from his posts last week about Obama’s so-called white voter problem. Obama has won non-college educated white voters in other states, notably Wisconsin. And the campaign is always quick to point out he’s also won states like Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Maine. He clearly does have a problem, but …
The Downside of Doing the Right Thing
John McCain can be applauded for establishing a clear, public policy defining the conflict of interest rules for lobbyists and vendors who work in his campaign, even if it comes pretty late in the cycle. His campaign is right to say that the policy is, in some ways, a stricter one than what Obama has announced. In some ways, it is also …
In the ArenaUncategorized
Hamilton Jordan
The first cover story I wrote for Rolling Stone Magazine, back before the dawn of time, was about Jimmy Carter’s top two, very young aides, Hamilton Jordan and Jody Powell–who posed as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for the cover shot. It was the worst-selling Rolling Stone cover of the 1970s, but it launched what now can be …
In the ArenaUncategorized
Jewish Appeasers
Israel acknowledges the widely assumed fact that it is negotiating with Syria indirectly, through Turkish intermediaries. The U.S. government tried to thwart these talks for years, but eased its opposition in recent months. Wonder what McCain thinks about this?
Joe versus the Google
Free speech wins (well, you know, this time):
Senator Lieberman’s staff identified numerous videos that they believed violated YouTube’s Community Guidelines. In response to his concerns, we examined and ended up removing a number of videos from the site, primarily because they depicted gratuitous violence, advocated violence, or used
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