As others have pointed out today, philanthropy by the wealthy can rarely have the same impact in the international arena as collective action by people with less money through their governments. That said, a remark by UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres at a press conference with Angelina Jolie on the education of children […]
Garance Franke-Ruta
Garance Franke-Ruta is a former senior editor at the Prospect. Her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. She was a 2006 recipient of a fellowship at the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University.
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GENE SPERLING’S AWESOME DAY.
Gene Sperling may not have benefitted from the split screen comparisons with Brad Pitt, but he seemed just thrilled later in the afternoon session on education to be sharing a stage with Columbian superstar and sexy songstress Shakira, of “Hips Don’t Lie” fame. –Garance Franke-Ruta
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IMUS FALLOUT STILL GOING.
Lost amid all the talk of the Iranian president and the war in Iraq this week is a Congressional hearing today entitled “From Imus to Industry: The Business of Stereotypes and Degrading Images,” where the following music industry executives were scheduled to appear and be asked to take a public position on the misogyny and […]
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INDEED.
Steven Greenhouse lays out the challenge for John Edwards: It often appears that the thing that will most help Mr. Edwards secure more union endorsements is not for him to march on a union picket line for the umpteenth time, but for him to get a 5 or 10 percentage point bump in nationwide polls. […]
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A GENERATION OF MORAL CRETINS.
Some of Rudy Giuliani‘s execrable young supporters are using the September 11th attacks to fundraise for the former New York mayor: A supporter of Rudy Giuliani’s is throwing a party that aims to raise $9.11 per person for the Republican’s presidential campaign. Abraham Sofaer is having a fundraiser at his Palo Alto, Calif., home on […]
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WEIRD PEOPLE WITH…
WEIRD PEOPLE WITH MONEY. I haven’t weighed in on the growing scandals on the political fundraising front, partly because I barely recall the last round of controversies in the mid-90s and so lack the sense of deja vu that older political reporters keep talking about, and partly because I’m not sure exactly what to say. […]
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OBAMA & SENIORS….
OBAMA & SENIORS. Also worth noting is that Barack Obama will be holding his own forum with seniors tomorrow in Ames, Iowa, and that this week he released a plan to eliminate income taxes for seniors who earn less than $50,000. That promise is likely to end taxes for the vast majority of seniors in […]
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RE: THE AARP….
RE: THE AARP. To answer Ezra‘s query, my understanding was that so many people wanted Obama to attend so many different events that he decided he couldn’t run his campaign the way he wanted to, so he instituted a blanket moratorium in August on attending non-DNC approved new events. This managed to get him out […]
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OBAMA’S BIG MISTAKE….
OBAMA’S BIG MISTAKE. (Photos: Divided We Fail advocates at Rudolph Giuliani and John Edwards events, Iowa, August 2007) Tonight the AARP is holding a Democratic presidential candidate forum in Davenport, Iowa. Barack Obama, in what I believe is the worst mistake to date by his otherwise strong Iowa campaign, will not be there. The Des […]
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THE LOBBY QUESTION….
THE LOBBY QUESTION. While I appreciate the shout-out from Ezra, I think that it’s still useful to make distinctions between a regional constituency and a lobby, even though those two can sometimes be functionally indistinguishable, and that the trotting out of the needlessly inflammatory language about American Jews we now find in the wake of […]