Health Insurance Mandates

Sam Stein reports that "Democrats are bracing themselves for a new line of conservative attack against a provision in the health care legislation once considered so non-controversial that it was endorsed by several major Republican officials."  What is it, you might ask, that these dastardly Republicans are opposing out of their racist hatred of Barack Obama? On Tuesday, Sen. Jon Kyl ...

McCain’s Oil Money

The latest campaign kerfuffle is the shocking fact that John McCain is receiving significant donations from the oil industry.  A new Obama ad says the amount is $2.1 million; FactCheck.org says it's a mere $1.33 million.  Either way, it's about triple what the industry is giving to Obama. More damning, critics say, is that there has been an uptick in oil ...

Obama Plunges in Newsweek Poll!

Newsweek has released a new poll and is excited by the huge change: "Glow Fading? The latest NEWSWEEK Poll shows Barack Obama leading John McCain by only 3 points. What a difference a few weeks can make." This is quite amusing in that pretty much everyone agreed that the June 20th Newsweek poll was an outlier. No matter. In ...

Throwing Sister Souljah Under the Bus

Publius thinks it's time to ban the phrase "Sister Souljah" moment, not just because it's hackneyed but because it has been misused. The more benign interpretation is that a Sister Souljah moment occurs when a candidate criticizes some group or idea nominally aligned with that candidate. In short, it’s criticizing your own coalition – or some idea valued by your coalition ...

Al Qaeda in Iraq Defeated?

Al Qaeda in Iraq [AQI] is all but defeated, Marie Colvin reports for The Sunday Times. A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10.  Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in ...

Obama to ‘Refine’ Iraq Deadline, Keep it Exactly Same

Barack Obama gave a speech yesterday in which he said there was some flexibility in his plan, touted throughout the Democratic primary season, to withdraw combat troops from Iraq within 16 months followed by another speech in which he explained that he meant no such thing. Michael Cooper and Jeff Zeleny have a solid summary and analysis piece for the NYT, ...

Fastest Flip-Flop In History?

Kevin Drum awards the world record for fastest flip-flop to Sean Hannity in a show yesterday commenting about the North Korea deal:HANNITY: The news today brings a clear foreign policy victory for the Bush administration. But will the press report it that way? Joining us now for analysis, former ambassador to the U.N. and a Fox News contributor, John Bolton. ...

McCain and ‘Privatizing’ Social Security

Quite a few commenters are accusing John McCain of flip-flopping because he favored privatization of Social security in 2004 and now adamantly rejects the insinuation that he supports it now: This is a clumsy rhetorical game rather than a policy shift. Then and now, McCain's position is that Social Security would remain as a government program but that younger workers ...

John McCain’s Jimmy Carter ‘Flip Flop’

The HuffPo PR department sent me an email entitled "McCain flip-flops on Jimmy Carter" touting a Seth Colter Walls post noting that John McCain has said nice things about Jimmy Carter in the past but is now saying mean things. He points to a recent quip by McCain that, "Sen. Obama says that I'm running for Bush's third term. It ...

McCain Flip-Flop on 100 Years in Iraq?

Josh Marshall is angry at the press for buying into what he believes is a lie: That John McCain doesn't want 100 years of war in Iraq but rather is willing to see a Germany-style long term, peaceful presence. McCain does not want to leave Iraq. Period. He wants tens of thousands of troops to stay in Iraq permanently. He ...

Romney Would Take VP Slot if Offered

Mitt Romney says that he'd be honored to serve if John McCain asked him to run as his vice president. Mitt Romney said in his first interview since departing the GOP race that he would accept the number two position on the ticket and that there is no lingering bitterness between him and John McCain. “I think any Republican leader in ...

Mitt Romney Campaign Postmortem

The collapse of Mitt Romney's bid for the presidency brings the inevitable question: What went wrong? Michael Luo gives a pretty good explanation. If Mr. Romney’s campaign were condensed to one of his trademark PowerPoint presentations, it would have had all the bullet points foretelling success: a multimillionaire candidate willing to relinquish his fortune to run, an unsettled Republican ...

The Ever Changing Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney has reinvented himself yet again, Michael Luo reports, this time as an anti-insider populist. Mitt Romney is leading a citizen revolution, or at least that is what he has been telling people these last few days as he has tries to right his bid for the Republican nomination. It may seem an unlikely role for a PowerPoint-loving, buttoned-down multimillionaire, ...

McCain’s Gay Bashing Robo Calls

Floridians are being treated to some robo-calls attacking Mitt Romney that HuffPo's Sam Stein and some homosexual activist leaders call "gay bashing." Here's the ad in question: Mitt Romney thinks he can fool us. He supported abortion on demand, even allowed a law mandating taxpayer-funding for abortion. He says he changed his mind, but he still hasn't changed the ...

Florida Primary Predictions

Yes, it's that time again: trying to make predictions in a political season that's largely defying predictability. Polls are open today in Florida, the last primary state before next week's Super Tuesday extravaganza, and it's an important contest, at least on the GOP side. As for the Democrats, it'll be a complete shock if Hillary Clinton doesn't win the ...