Dana Goldstein

At last night’s debate, John McCain proposed a $300 billion rescue plan for Americans with sub-prime mortgages, in which the Treasury Department would buy such mortgages back and, if their holders proved to be sufficiently financially stable, would convert them into fixed-rate loans. The Obama campaign responded that the bailout package passed by Congress already […]

During the first half hour of this debate, I thought we were finally going to see the truth at the heart of the conventional wisdom: John McCain did seem better at the town hall style than Barack Obama. McCain used the old five-paragraph essay trick: restating the question at the beginning of his answers, which […]

There is some good news for reproductive-rights supporters in the Supreme Court’s choices on which cases to hear this session. The Court has passed on an odd New Jersey case in which a woman sued her doctor for not informing her that her abortion would terminate “a complete, separate, unique and irreplaceable human being.” The […]

At RH Reality Check, Sarah Seltzer lists the questions she’d like to see answered at a “women’s issues debate,” covering topics ranging from the United States’ unacceptably high infant and maternal mortality rates to whether the candidates consider contraception akin to abortion to asking McCain and Obama to name female role models. That got me […]

The latest development in the Michael Bloomberg third term drama is that Ronald Lauder, the billionaire term limit backer who last week announced he supports Bloomberg’s quest for world domination, has now changed his mind — again. Lauder won’t back Bloomie unless the addition of a third term for mayors and city council members is […]

As if we needed any more evidence that the GOP holdouts against the bailout were motivated by discredited Reagan era corporate welfare politics. … Today Ryan Grim of Politico reveals that Bill Isaac, an obscure Sarasota-based financial consultant and onetime FDIC appointee, almost single-handedly pushed House Republicans (and some Democrats) into anti-bailout stances earlier this […]

The New York Times evidently believes it “got” Joe Biden today with its story about his big mansion and relationships with corporate bigwigs in his home state. There’s some interesting stuff in there about the backscratching between donors and Biden, mostly around real estate, but none of it is corrupt — rather, it’s typical of […]

Looking over the transcript of the part of the Couric–Palin interview that dealt with sexual health, I’m struck by Palin’s inability to coherently state her public policy opinions on the issues of abortion and contraception. She’ll say what she’s personally for or against, but won’t take the extra step, as Joe Biden or Barack Obama […]

You know, the interview with Sarah Palin is doing wonders for Katie Couric‘s career as a serious newscaster, which just several weeks ago was assumed to be nearly over. We’re seeing the great utility of having a woman across the table from Palin: Had a man conducted the toughest, most embarrassing interview of this election […]