Sam Rosenfeld

HOWARD FINEMAN SEZ. Fred Thompson is going to be jumping into the presidential race, though not until July. So says Fineman on the MSNBC debate pre-show. –Sam Rosenfeld

KUTTNER V. KRISTOL. Before you watch the fiasco of the GOP presidential lineup debate each other, check out Robert Kuttner and Bill Kristol debate the collapse of conservatism at the Campaign for America’s Future’s conference on the subject today. See more on the conference here. (And yes, comments are still broken. Did I mention there’s […]

FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT. The New Republic‘s James Kirchick, who knows what battles need fighting, valiantly takes on actress Julie Christie for a quote in The New Yorker about the movie “The Lives of Others” that might not have meant what Kirchick thinks it meant. (If, for example, I sometimes wearily say “oh, they gave […]

TALK AMERICAN! As some may have heard, illustrious Bossman Emeritus Mike Tomasky is starting work as editor of the Guardian‘s new website, Guardian America. We’re all, of course, excited and happy for Mike — the Guardian‘s great and Comment is Free in particular is one of the few great examples of a newspaper offering an […]

WORST. PANEL. EVER? That’s probably hyperbolic, but this certainly would make my own idiosyncratic shortlist: “Civility and American Politics,” featuring John Boehner and Joe Lieberman. The Politico writes up the discussion. At one point Boehner launched into a discussion of how Democrats aren’t serious about national security and “are looking at the next election, looking […]

LIBERALISM VERSUS POPULISM. In yesterday’s New York Times, Michael Lind had a generous and thoughtful review of Freedom�s Power. He takes me to task, however, on one issue in particular: my treatment of the Populist movement of the late nineteenth century. He is entirely right that in discussing the formative influences on modern liberalism, I […]

CZAR SEARCH. Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes up an appraisal of national security advisor Stephen Hadley that’s also a report on Hadley’s continuing, unsuccessful efforts to recruit somebody to be the Iraq war “czar.” Yes, the White House is still pursuing this notion. Stolberg’s piece — just like David Sanger‘s Times article from Saturday about how […]

FAREWELL ANGELINA. Sure, sure, there was a debate on, but my cable news highlight last night was Bill O’Reilly‘s interview with Jon Voight. I like to keep up on my celebrity politics, but I must confess I hadn’t known Voight was a big right-winger. The difference in O’Reilly’s body language and vocal tones in an […]

STRAW DOGS. During the Dem debate, I think it was obvious, by the way all the other candidates repeatedly jumped at the chance to change whatever the subject was at hand and readdress remarks about terrorism and the use of force made by Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, that they considered those two candidates to […]

WIN, LOSE, OR DRAW. The Politico had a piece about various Democrats’ wary responses to queries about Harry Reid‘s (decontextualized) “the war is lost” line. John Edwards said this: “I think it depends entirely on what your definition of ‘lost’ means. That sounded familiar, didn’t it?” former senator John Edwards, a Democratic presidential candidate, said […]