ASK THE REPUBLICANS. So now John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton have all been asked, with varying results, whether they agree with Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace�s assertion that homosexuality is �immoral.� Much ink has been spilled on their answers. But I haven�t seen that the leading Republican candidates for president have been asked […]
Paul Waldman
Paul Waldman is a weekly columnist and senior writer for The American Prospect. He also writes for the Plum Line blog at The Washington Post and The Week and is the author of Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.
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ON WILL.
ON WILL. Over the weekend, The New York Times published a story comparing the Vietnam experiences of John McCain and Chuck Hagel, purporting to analyze the connections between those experiences and their positions on Iraq today. The story did a reasonably good job making the connection with regard to Hagel: Mr. Hagel has described seeing […]
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SHOULD DEMS BOYCOTT FOX NEWS?
SHOULD DEMS BOYCOTT FOX NEWS? In today�s Los Angeles Times, the wise and measured Ron Brownstein is the latest to weigh in on the should-Democrats-go-on-Fox question (he doesn�t really take a position). There are reasonable arguments on both sides of this question — you can argue that Democrats should fight everywhere they can, or you […]
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DON’T BE EVIL?
DON’T BE EVIL? Today the New York Times tells us, under the happy headline, “Google Is Reviving Hopes For Ex-Furniture Makers,” that the internet behemoth is doing the good folks of Lenoir, North Carolina a solid by locating a server farm in their area, where a lot of jobs making furniture have moved overseas. Sounds […]
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THE TWO-TIMING DOUBLE STANDARD.
THE TWO-TIMING DOUBLE STANDARD. We now have three Republican presidential candidates or potential candidates — John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Newt Gingrich — who have admitted to cheating on one or more of their wives. (OK, what Rudy admits to is a little complicated. He was carrying on with his third wife when he was […]
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NEWT �08.
NEWT �08. Newt Gingrich has seen his opening. And you can�t blame him — given that all three of the leading GOP �08 contenders have their problems with the base, there seems to be a gap somebody like him could fill. How do we know he�s leaning toward throwing his visionary, forward-looking, world-transforming hat into […]
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PRIMAL FEAR.
PRIMAL FEAR. As Ezra notes, questions about Mitt Romney‘s religion could be getting too much attention, given the fact that it is Romney as an individual people will either be voting for or against. But the Romney campaign is obviously acutely aware of the question of whether conservatives will consider Romney “one of us” or […]
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QUANTIFYING A LIE.
QUANTIFYING A LIE. The new print issue of the Prospect features a disagreement in the letters page between Todd Gitlin and Alan Abramowitz over the question of just how often the meme “Al Gore claimed he invented the Internet” appeared in the American media during the 2000 campaign. Since the media�s war on Gore is […]
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Out-Foxed, Finally?
When the Nielsen ratings for the second quarter of 2006 came in, FOX News Channel got some bad news. The network’s entire weekday lineup — every show — had lost viewers from the first quarter of the year. Special Report with Brit Hume, down 19 percent. The Big Story with John Gibson, down 13 percent. […]
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The Liberal Moderates
The 2006 elections may be a year away, but already Democrats are working hard not to get cocky. With Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and the multiple corruption scandals swirling around the Republicans, the ruling party is looking increasingly vulnerable. The president’s approval ratings have slipped into the 30-percent neighborhood in some polls, and when people are […]