Sam Rosenfeld

BAI ON DEAN. Matt Bai‘s piece in The New York Times Magazine about Howard Dean‘s tenure at the Democratic National Committee bodes well for Bai’s upcoming book on the Democrats, the lead time on which I do not envy him, since I can see about three perfectly valid, if mutually exclusive, premises for such a […]

THEY’VE ALL GOT NEWT’S TALKING POINTS. As I scrolled through my e-mail this morning, I was greeted by one with this charming subject line: “Pro-Homosexual Political Correctness Sowed Seeds for Foley Scandal.” It was from Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. Perkins uses the Mark Foley scandal to assert the following: “While pro-homosexual […]

CT SEN: LIEBERMAN TO KEEP SENIORITY? The Hill reports today that Sen. Joe Lieberman, who left the Democratic Party in August to run for the Senate under a banner of his own making, may be able to keep his seniority in the caucus after all. Sen. Joe Lieberman, the longtime Democratic senator from Connecticut running […]

LOOSE PEDOPHILIA TALK. Except for the swipe about the gay left and street hustlers, I agree with Jonah Goldberg here. –Sam Rosenfeld

SPOTLIGHT ON DENNY. The Washington Times editorial is bad enough, but the real sign that things are beginning to fall apart for the House leadership is this new John Boehner interview in which the majority leader makes it very, very explicit that this is all on Hastert. “I believe I talked to the Speaker and […]

PHOENIX SORT OF RISING, OR NOT. Certainly Ari Berman‘s big piece in The Nation on the Democracy Alliance — the would-be white knight group of liberal super-donors who set out to fund the vast left-wing conspiracy — is a must-read (and, frankly, a somewhat courageous feat on Ari’s part). There’s a lot going on in […]

EXFOLEYATING. Noam Scheiber highlights (with suitable amusement) the early signs that Republicans are going to be dogged by “concerned citizens”-style groups regarding Foleygate; meanwhile, Josh Marshall makes a big-picture case for why this scandal is going to devastate the GOP. His point about Tom Reynolds deserves elaboration. Reynolds is caught in the middle of the […]

POWER AND PRINCIPLES. Sebastian Mallaby complains that Democrats are poised to possibly win the House back next month yet have no agenda or philosophical principles on which to govern should they win. As ever, there is a double-standard at work here. Republicans are typically given a pass for governing from an agenda unmoored from their […]

POLLS, POLLS, POLLS. A whole slew of Mason-Dixon polls have been released over the last 24 hours, and most of them suggest Democrats are poised to have a very good year: * In Maryland, Ben Cardin (D) leads Michael Steele (R), 47% to 41% * In Missouri, Jim Talent (R) is tied with Claire McCaskill […]

BAD TIMING. Boy, was this the wrong weekend for The New York Times to run that criminally weightless Op-Ed from Mark (Slam Book) Halperin about the essential political genius of the Party of Lincoln. First, there are all those administration loyalists running to the air-sickness bag formerly known as Bob Woodward to vomit back up […]