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Michael Tomasky

Michael Tomasky is the American editor-at-large of the Guardian (UK). He was executive editor of the Prospect from 2003 to 2006.

Recent Articles

JUST REMEMBER.

Michael TomaskySep 19, 2006
JUST REMEMBER. Every time McCain does something that Richard Cohen likes, his chances of winning the GOP nomination decrease. So, rather than get upset when center-libs throw themselves at McCain, you folks ought to rejoice, because every instance of such makes it that much less likely that the R�s most formidable man will gain his party�s support. --Michael Tomasky

ONE-AND-A-HALF CHEERS FOR WARNER.

Michael TomaskySep 19, 2006
ONE-AND-A-HALF CHEERS FOR WARNER. Okay, he�s trying to fashion himself the common-good candidate, so naturally I hold a soft spot in my heart for Mark Warner . So take that for what it�s worth as I offer an alternate theory of the case to Ezra �s . Here, to me, is the big 2008 picture (assume for the moment no run by Gore ). You have Hillary . You have Edwards , who is now, by dint of a primary calendar that is so incredibly Edwards-friendly that I find it hard to understand why the other campaigns let it happen, a sort of co-front-runner. They�re your Jordan and Pippen , if you don�t mind a metaphor that exposes how long it�s been since I closely watched professional basketball. After them, your card is full of indistinguishables -- at this point. But one of the B-level players will distinguish himself. Why? Because there will be concern (or, is concern) that HRC is not electable for personal reasons, and that Edwards is not electable for ideological reasons. So the Graham Greene...

Desperation Time

Michael TomaskySep 17, 2006
On the recent fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, President Bush visited all three sites of the mayhem -- the field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the courageous passengers took down United Flight 93; the Pentagon, long since rebuilt; and Manhattan's ground zero, earth onto which New York's bickering and feeble Republican politicians have managed in half a decade to lay not a stone. Any president might have taken this somber whistle-stop tour. But long experience in observing this administration's uses of the attacks makes Bush's excursion different -- a ceremony not of national unity and grief but of image-making for the purpose of political advantage. We've now lived through five years of cowboy talk and admonitions to watch what we say and do; of terrorists being “on the run” and the Iraqi insurgency being in its “last throes”; of attacks -- carefully not from the president, but from everyone else, and issued repeatedly -- on the patriotism of critics. For an...

OBSCENE.

Michael TomaskySep 11, 2006
OBSCENE. Both the Times and the Post note this morning that Bush laid two wreaths at ground zero last night in the company of George Pataki , Mike Bloomberg , and Rudy Giuliani . The Post goes well out of its way to remark that the event �left aside the partisan rancor� that�well, that Bush & Co. have enforced on the country since about 9-14. If this event was so nonpartisan, where were Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton ? Neither paper makes any mention of their having been there. I�m told that in fact they were not invited (they were at St. Paul�s church, where Bush went after laying the wreaths -- and where there were apparently no photographers!!). In what sense does an event that features four Republicans but excludes the two senators who were representing New York at the time of the event, but who happen to be Democrats, leave aside partisan rancor? I was in NYC during 9-11 and for two years after, and I remember Chuck and HRC (and House members of both parties) attending...

SORRY, NOT SORRY.

Michael TomaskySep 07, 2006
SORRY, NOT SORRY. I realize this is not a mystery that ranks up there with whether the president really read a biography of Chairman Mao , but I suppose I should clarify that no, we won�t be apologizing to Karl Rove as per David Broder �s suggestion today. Broder cites a Salon piece by my friend Sidney Blumenthal (reprinted in Sid�s new book How Bush Rules ; buy it now!), a Newsweek piece by an unnamed writer, and a TAP cover story by our investigative editor Joe Conason as having unfairly calumniated Rove in connection with Plame -gate. It�s the standard line: that Mike Isikoff and David Corn �s revelation in their new book, Hubris ( buy it now!), that Richard Armitage was Bob Novak �s source has to mean that Rove and Scooter Libby are completely innocent. Joe dispensed with this argument in his Observer column yesterday: But whatever Mr. Armitage did, or says he did, in no way alters what Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby did in the days that followed, nor does it change their intentions. It�s...

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