Hewitt Wins Yglesias Award

Now, here's something I thought I'd never see:  Andrew Sullivan has nominated Hugh Hewitt for an Yglesias Award for his defense of Sonia Sotomayor. For those who don't keep up with such things, "The Yglesias Award is for writers, politicians, columnists or pundits who actually criticize their own side, make enemies among political allies, and generally risk something for the sake ...

One of These Is Not Like the Other

Timothy Sandefur is embarrassed: So I was watching this insane video of Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie discussing the War on Terrorism with Mos Def. And it’s amusing to laugh at the utterly hapless ignorance of "Mr. Def," as he is repeatedly called—until you stop and wonder. Why is the black community not outraged by this? Bill Maher hosts a talk ...

The End of Fascism

Megan McArdle calls for an extension of Godwin's Law that would put an end to "using the word fascist to apply to the current, or indeed previous, administration." How is this helpful?  Has clarifying the distinction between fascism and socialism really added to most peoples' understanding of what the Obama administration is doing?  All this does is drag the specter of ...

Meghan McCain Too Fat?

Meghan McCain, daughter of John, has managed to extend her fame into a 16th minute by antagonizing the likes of Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham, the latter of which retorted that Ms. McCain was "too plus-sized to be a cast member on the television show The Real World." McCain then sent out a Twitter alert: "To all the curvy girls out ...

Ann Coulter Book Sales Decline

Jeff Bercovici notes Ann Coulter's declining book sales: Coulter's latest book, Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America, is something of a misfire by Coulterian standards. Of course, what constitutes a disappointment for Coulter would be a mega-hit for most authors; in its two months on sale, Guilty has sold 100,500 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan (a number that only ...

Would Reagan Recognize Today’s Republican Party?

Former Texas congressman and minor Reagan administration official Mickey Edwards claims his old boss wouldn't recognize the modern GOP were he alive today. He believes modern Republicans are simply reflexively anti-government with no agenda otherwise. What would Reagan think of this? Wasn't it he who warned that government is the problem? [...] Reagan, who spent 16 years in government, actually said this: "In ...

Obama Dines With Will, Kristol, Krauthammer, and Brooks

The hottest story at memeorandum today is a remake of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," with Barack Obama in the Sidney Poitier role and George Will as Spencer Tracy.  Or something like that, anyway.    Obama had supper at Will's Chevy Chase manse and Bill Kristol and David Brooks were on the guest list.   As John Kennedy might have observed, ...

Can the Polls Be Trusted?

It never fails that, as Election Day draws close, the supporters of the candidate trailing in the polls start telling us that the polls aren't accurate.  Part of this is Pauline Kaelism, with most people associating with likeminded people and therefore floored that more than half the country could possibly prefer the other guy when everyone they know supports their ...

Blogs Then and Now

Aaron Brazell is doing some research on the evolution of blogging in recent years and has asked for my input. [Update: The result, "Political Blogging 2.0," is now up.] I started OTB in January 2003 and have seen a lot of change. I should note at the outset that my experience is almost entirely with the political blogosphere, a ...

Edwards Questions Obama’s Masculinity

Mark Halperin reports that John Edwards "has real questions about [Barack] Obama's toughness, his readiness for the office. He has real doubts about Obama, not just as a president, but as a general election candidate." Apparently, Edwards summed this up with a one-word epithet that is also used to describe kitty cats and female sex parts. Halperin has subsequently ...

Ann Coulter Calls Obama ‘Least Dangerous’ Hussein

Ann Coulter's speech this year wasn't on the official CPAC docket but was instead sponsored by the Young America's Foundation and others. Still, there was a packed house with long lines that I wouldn't have bothered to stand in were I not able to bypass them with press credentials. As is her shtick, she threw plenty of grenades and ...

Ann Coulter Not (Officially) Invited to CPAC 2008

I've been invited once again to be an official blogger at CPAC, the premier gathering of American conservatives sponsored by the American Conservative Union. I'm swamped with a project at work but hope to be able to make it to a few sessions; thankfully, it's only a couple miles away from the office. Among the speakers on the conference ...

Goldberg, Coulter, and Savage

Goldberg, Kevin Holtsberry, and Steve Dillard take exception to the assertion in my recent post on The Conservative Minority that "the modern Conservative Moment seems to be dominated by the shrill nonsense of Coulter and Jonah Goldberg and Michael Savage and Neil Boortz." First, it's a good sign that conservatives at least recognize that being associated with these people ...

The Conservative Minority

I feel like I'm beating a dead horse on the issue, but the continued high pitched battle between conservative Republicans who have rallied around conservative-come-lately Mitt Romney in hopes of defeating Teddy Kennedy's Good Friend John McCain remains the most interesting story this election cycle. Conservatives Love Romney The most recent Rasmussen poll shows that "Romney leads by sixteen percentage points ...

Conservatives Against McCain

Judging by the enemies he's making, I'm liking John McCain more with each passing day. Ann Coulter says she'd "campaign for" Hillary Clinton, who she thinks "is more conservative." Meanwhile, Glenn Beck is railing against "Juan McCain" for his outreach to Hispanics. Thankfully, this over-the-top stuff is being rejected by most conservatives. AllahPundit calls Coulter's statement "Madness" and Sean Hackbarth, late ...