Mori Dinauer

Politico reports that Bush-era all-stars Ken Mehlman and Karl Rove are set to join team McCain as informal advisers: Ken Mehlman, who ran Bush’s 2004 campaign, is now serving as an unpaid, outside adviser to the Arizona Republican. Karl Rove, the president’s top political hand since his Texas days, recently gave money to McCain and […]

The cover story in the new American Conservative about Barack Obama‘s foreign policy is highly unconvincing. The main argument — repeated in various forms no less than ten times — is that an Obama foreign policy would essentially be a continuation or expansion of George Bush‘s foreign policy. To achieve this surprising conclusion, Brendan O’Neill […]

The Chronicle Review recently asked its readers to send in design sketches for the George W. Bush presidential library and the results are pretty imaginative. “Hole in the Ground,” complete with the movie-set facade, is symbolically appropriate, as is “Bunker,” although the latter looks like it was lifted from the production design notes for The […]

There’s primaries being held in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont today — in case you didn’t know. The two large states are considered must-wins for Senator Hillary Clinton to stave off Senator Barack Obama‘s momentum (he has won the last 11 primaries consecutively). Let’s evaluate the most relevant information related to the latest (and […]

Yesterday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a major step forward on contempt. In a letter to Jeffrey Taylor, the U.S. Attorney for the Distrect of Columbia, Pelosi certified the subpoena breeches by Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten: The undersigned, The Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States, pursuant to the attached House […]

Ever since the Iran NIE came out, it’s been hard to leverage a strong case against the Iranian regime as being remotely dangerous to the security of the United States. But keep in mind that at one point it was conventional wisdom that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was not only insane, but diabolical enough to take over […]

Identifying the worst moment in last night’s (hopefully) final Democratic debate is, I realize, a matter of taste. But identifying the source of those moments is easy: Tim Russert. Memorable moments include the following: Russert reminding us, again, of his blue collar credentials, acquired on the mean streets of Buffalo, NY: “And I was reminded […]

Via Rick Perlstein, an interesting nugget in this CBS/NY Times survey: Almost three-quarters of Republican primary voters – including 60 percent of conservatives – want a candidate who would compromise with Democrats in order to get things done. Only 14 percent said they want a Republican president who will stick to Republican positions even if […]

Although Paul Krugman frequently delves into his area of expertise, economics, in order to dispatch conservative myths and cons — on tax cuts, health care, the stimulus package — his strength has always been to tie policy to political motivation. With this in mind, Krugman’s column in today’s Times begins with a promising premise. He […]

Yesterday, Sam Boyd noted the possible candidacy of Lawrence Lessig for California’s 12th Congressional district premised on a “Change Congress” campaign that, in addition to banning earmarks from the appropriations process, also seeks to make running for office 100% publicly financed. What isn’t spelled out in Lessig’s pitch is the idea that it’s not so […]