Stevens Loses Re-Election Bid
Senator Ted Stevens, who looked to have narrowly won re-election to the Senate weeks after being convicted on felony corruption charges, has now apparently lost as absentee ballots are slowly counted. Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in Senate history, narrowly lost his re-election bid Tuesday, marking the downfall of a Washington political power and Alaska icon who couldn't survive ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on November 19, 2008 08:29
Ted Stevens Re-elected, ‘Senator Convicted Felon’
While neither AP nor the networks have yet called it, convicted felon Ted Stevens has almost certainly been re-elected to the Senate from Alaska. Alaskans will have to wait a little while longer to find out if Senator Ted Stevens has been re-elected just days after becoming a convicted felon. The Republican held a slim lead over Democrat Mark Begich with ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on November 5, 2008 10:01
Obama a Terrorist! McCain a Crook!
We've reached the seemingly inevitable part of the campaign where the trailing candidates start hurling charges out of desperation and the leader responds in kind. In the closing days of 1992, President George H.W. Bush, ordinarily among the most decent, genteel fellows you'd ever meet, was running around calling Bill Clinton and Al Gore "bozos." He simply couldn't ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on October 6, 2008 08:05
McCain ‘Broken’ ‘Family’
The McCain campaign has launched two new ad videos in consecutive days under the titles "Broken" and "Family." I find the juxtaposition amusing. The spots themselves strike me as weak but, as I keep reminding myself, I'm not the target audience. "Broken" Washington's broken. John McCain knows it. We're worse off than we were four years ago. Only McCain has taken on big ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on August 6, 2008 11:46
Ted Stevens Indicted on Corruption Charges
Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens has been indicted for concealing payments from his financial disclosure forms.The indictment accuses Stevens, former chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, of concealing payments of more than $250,000 in goods and services from an oil company. The items include home improvements, autos and household items. The Alaska oil firm, Veco, and its onetime leader Bill Allen, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 29, 2008 13:50
When in Rome, Amigo . . .
President Bush had a minor language gaffe during a light and amiable luncheon with the other G-8 leaders: The life-of-the-party president, mingling before the meal, chatted animatedly about his parents’ health, his birthday and the corruption charges facing one of his best buddies in Europe, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy. “Amigo! Amigo!” Mr. Bush called out cheerily in Spanish when he ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 10, 2008 14:02
All Political Corruption is Local
Matt Yglesias is befuddled that Michael Bloomberg is ineligible for re-election as NYC mayor: It really does seem a bit odd that a mayor with a 67 percent approval rating should be forced from office because of a term limits law. I suppose I understand the theory that presidential-level term limits serve as a check on tyranny, but there doesn't seem ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 7, 2008 14:39
Swift-Boating Here to Stay
Michael Kinsley hopes that Swift-Boating, a combination of smear and truth that "exploits its own complexity and the reluctance of the media to adjudicate factual disputes" and thus sticks, will not reappear this election season. The raw material for swift-boating this year is already apparent. There is Obama's loony pastor, his friendship with a former radical, his dealings with a convicted ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on June 13, 2008 12:05
Is Time on the Iranians’ Side?
That's the central claim of David Ignatius's column in the Washington Post this morning: So imagine that you are Qassem Soleimani, commander of a covert Iranian army deployed across the Middle East: You doubt the Bush administration would run the risk of a military strike against Iran, but you can't be sure. You think America can't afford to play chicken in ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on June 9, 2008 11:25
Two Blogs that Pass in the Night
Yesterday's exchange with Thers over the state of conservatism reflects a major defect in the blogging medium. For the most part, we write blogs in serial fashion, as a conversation with our readers, and presume that recent posts on the same subject have been read. Most blog readers, on the other hand, parachute into posts based on links ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on May 26, 2008 08:35
