Obama’s Europe Neglect Could Bring Bush Nostalgia
My first piece for ForeignPolicy.com, "Europe's Obama Fatigue," is online. Despite George W. Bush's defiant "you're with us or you're against us" public stance, he actively solicited advice and input from his NATO partners. Obama, by contrast, is saying all the right things in public about transatlantic relations and NATO but adopting a high-handed policy and paying little attention to Europe. [...] It would ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 30, 2009 06:10
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 ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 27, 2009 14:22
‘World’s Greatest Dad’ Arrested in Internet Sex Sting
Not our standard fare but a hard one to resist: A man from Oakland County [Michigan] has been arrested and charged in an Internet sex sting. Daniel Everett, 33, of Clarkston was talking online with a 14-year-old girl who he met in a chat room. The two had graphic sexual conversations and Everett propositioned the teen to meet him for sex. But ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 16, 2008 09:56
Only Muslim Extremists Get Upset About Cartoons
Good line, purportedly from Jon Stewart: Obama is not upset about the cartoon that calls him a Muslim extremist. Who gets upset about cartoons? Muslim extremists. via Steve Garfield. See "New Yorker Obama Terrorist Cover" for background and commentary on the story. UPDATE: Amusingly, I see via Memeorandum, the hubbub goes on. Obama is continuing to beat this dead horse: Democrat Barack Obama said ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 16, 2008 06:37
New Yorker Obama Terrorist Cover
The liberal blogs are in a tizzy about the cover of the July 21 New Yorker, an illustration by Barry Blitt which shows the Obamas in terrorist outfits, doing a fist bump with a big portrait of Osama bin Laden over their mantle with an American flag burning in the fireplace: Given that this is the liberal New Yorker and that ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 14, 2008 07:18
iPhone Mania
Megan McArdle and Peter Suderman camped out overnight in front of a Washington, DC Apple store in order to be among the first to get one of the new iPhones. Megan assures us that this is a mere sociological exercise for her: "I feel no desperate urge to get my hands on one of the VERY FIRST 3G IPHONES, but ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 11, 2008 08:10
National Mall Disrepair
CNN features, on the 4th of July no less, a piece entitled "National Mall in monumental disrepair, activists say." This gathering place known as America's "front yard" stretches from the Capitol to the Potomac River and is home to the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials and Washington Monument, but it's starting to look like "an old rundown, worn-out mall that looks ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 5, 2008 08:59
Obama’s ‘Sweetheart’ Home Loan
The Manufactured Outrage of the Day comes to us from Joe Stephens and his page A3 piece for today's Washington Post, "Obama Got Discount on Home Loan." Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 2, 2008 15:15
AP Announces Excerpt Fees
Just when it appeared that the Associated Press had come to its senses, they've now announced an exorbitant up-front fee for even short quotations of their works, Tim Conneally reports for BetaNews. They've created a handy-dandy online form to calculate what we owe them. Hmm. Well, surely, an organization as large as the AP, which goes around ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 18, 2008 07:18
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 on June 13, 2008 12:05
Jim Webb: Confederate Sympathizer?
Senator Jim Webb, touted by many as a vice presidential candidate who would help shore up Barack Obama with Southerners and those uncomfortable with his lack of national security experience, has an "affinity" for the Confederacy, Politico's David Mark reports breathlessly. He has suggested many times that while the Confederacy is a symbol to many of the racist legacy ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 11, 2008 07:15
Why Obama Beat Clinton
AP's Stephen Ohlemacher explains why Barack Obama, the young upstart, is going to be the Democratic Party nominee for president while Hillary Rodham Clinton, the hands-down favorite, is getting a set of steak knives. Unlike Hillary Rodham Clinton, rival Barack Obama planned for the long haul. Clinton hinged her whole campaign on an early knockout blow on Super Tuesday, while Obama's ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 1, 2008 07:07
Everything Racial Isn’t Racist
Spencer Ackerman applauds Megan Carpentier for her rejoinder to Geraldine Ferarro: "People coming up to you and complaining that they can't complain about black people is them complaining for being looked down upon for being racists!" It's a great line except for its being gobsmackingly stupid. Ferraro was passing on complaints of Clinton supporters frustrated that every attack made on Barack Obama ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 31, 2008 11:31
McCain Real Change Candidate?
David Brooks invokes the late Mancur Olsen to explain why egregiously bad legislation like the recent farm and energy bills -- pork laden monstrosities that pretty much everyone agrees are bad public policy -- easily pass into law. He then shifts to the presumptive November contest between John McCain and Barack Obama. Barack Obama talks about taking on the special ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 20, 2008 18:06
Too Much Color, Not Enough Culture
Clarence Page argues that Barack Obama's failure to connect with white "working class" voters has more to do with culture than color. Democratic nominees have not won a majority of working-class white males at the ballot box since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, when Obama was still a preschooler. Since then, Bill Clinton came closest in 1992 by connecting culturally, not ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 18, 2008 09:04
