Obama: Disloyal, Ruthless, Cold
Wednesday's column by Maureen Dowd, eviscerating President Obama for his shabby treatment of former White House Counsel Greg Craig and supporter Caroline Kennedy, is getting favorable responses from his supporters in the blogosphere. Only a year after he had helped Barack Obama get elected by eviscerating his close friend, Clinton White House colleague and Yale Law School classmate, Hillary Clinton, Craig ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 26, 2009 09:29
Weak Democrats Hurt 2010 Senate Chances
Josh Marshall argues that bad picks by Democratic governors in filling vacant seats make it harder than necessary to retain those seats. I was just looking at this run-down of recent polls by Tom Jensen at Public Policy Polling. The upshot is that while it seems extremely unlikely Republicans could regain control of the senate next year, it's not impossible and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 26, 2009 08:41
Giuliani Running for Senate, Not Governor
Yesterday, the NYT and other outlets reported that former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani has decided against running for governor of New York. But the Daily News is reporting that he is instead "very likely" to run in the special election to fill the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate seat. The Republican heavyweight was considered the GOP's best shot ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 20, 2009 08:52
Berlin Wall Fall: 20 Years Later
Twenty years ago today, I was leading a rocket artillery platoon in live fire exercises at the Grafenwoehr Training Area in Eastern Bavaria. Some 400 kilometers to the north, the Berlin Wall was coming down. Back in my teaching days, I jokingly used this coincidence to illustrate the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. I don't have much in the way ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 9, 2009 12:44
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 ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 23, 2009 09:09
Profound Changes in U.S. Foreign Policy?
Author David Rothkopf (who served as a deputy undersecretary of commerce under Bill Clinton) argues in the Sunday Washington Post that, while the commentariet is distracted by Hillary Clinton's celebrity, the new secretary of state is "overseeing what may be the most profound changes in U.S. foreign policy in two decades -- a transformation that may render the presidencies of ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 24, 2009 08:59
Hilary Clinton’s Congo Outburst and the Media
Hillary Clinton's Congo blow-up is a story that just won't go away. Even those sympathetic to Obama and Clinton, like Jon Stewart, are having a field day with this. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Hillary in the Congo www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance Mrs. Clinton’s answer on Monday has quickly become the No. 1 sound bite ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 13, 2009 07:04
Hillary Clinton’s Congo Blow-Up
Hillary Clinton chewed out a Congolese student for asking what "Mr. Clinton" thought about a public policy issue: ABC's Kirit Radia: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost her cool Monday after a Congolese student, speaking through a translator, asked her what "Mr. Clinton" thought about a Chinese trade deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. "You want me to tell you what ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 11, 2009 07:32
Sarah Palin’s Toenails
Huffington Post is catching some grief over a post by Anya Strzemien titled "Sarah Palin's Toenails: What's Painted On Them? (PHOTOS, POLL)." Apparently, the Alaska governor and former Republican vice presidential nominee had some manner of decorative adornment on her nails which were in display in some orange strappy sandals: While some are taking HuffPo to task for journalistic silliness and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 9, 2009 14:30
Clinton: Obama Passed ‘3 a.m.’ Test
Hillary Clinton tells George Stephanopoulous that President Obama has passed her test: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said President Barack Obama has "absolutely" answered questions she posed during the Democratic campaign about his lack of experience and ability to handle an international crisis. In her first Sunday show interview since her presidential bid ended a year ago, I asked Clinton if Obama ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 7, 2009 08:28
Obama Correspondents’ Dinner Zingers
President Obama took his first turn at the annual event where presidents become stand-up comics and the pretense that politicians and the press are adversaries are dropped for a night. He was terrific, as presidents almost invariably are. WaPo's Richard Leiby rounds up some of the zingers: [N]o one in his administration was safe from his one-liners. Not Secretary of State Hillary Rodham ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 10, 2009 05:57
Tom Ridge Maryland Resident, Pennsylvanian?
Taegan Goddard passes on word that Tom Ridge, once Pennsylvania's governor and putatively contemplating running for Arlen Specter's seat representing that state in the Senate, is a resident of Maryland for the purposes of federal tax and lobbying filings. Do these sort of things matter in statewide elections? Is anyone otherwise disposed to vote for Ridge going to be dissuaded by ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 5, 2009 14:51
Hillary’s Debt
Hillary Clinton still owes a lot of money from her ill-fated run for president. She owes $2.3 million just to consultant Mark Penn. So, naturally, Clinton's pals are holding various fundraisers to pay down said debt. Ezra Klein asks an uncomfortable question: Between 2004 and 2006, tax documents show that Bill Clinton earned $51 million. Put differently, erasing his wife's campaign debt ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 17, 2009 09:36
Economist to Obama: ‘Lead, Dammit’
The editorial board at The Economist (which apparently considers itself a "newspaper" despite coming out weekly in magazine format) praises President Obama for having "already done some commendable things" in the foreign policy arena but charges that, domestically, "His performance has been weaker than those who endorsed his candidacy, including this newspaper, had hoped." They note that, after a euphoric ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 28, 2009 05:49
Rush Limbaugh: Not That Influential?
Jonathan Last offers a long retort to the notion that Rush Limbaugh is a significant influencer of American politics, much less the de facto leader of the Republican Party. He rejects, for example, the notion that having a large audience necessarily matters: Consider television. From 1998 to 2005, Everybody Loves Raymond was among the top 15 rated shows on TV. For ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 6, 2009 06:51
