Republicans Better Informed
A new Pew survey shows a rather steep "Partisan Knowledge Gap," with Republicans and Independents generally better informed than Democrats. Mary Katharine Ham finds this quite amusing and also notes that, "if the polling had gone the other way, the NYT would shout it from the rooftops." She provides examples of the mainstream press doing just that on previous occasions. We'd need ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 28, 2009 13:18
Roger Ailes for President?!
Topping Memeorandum is Mike Allen's wild speculation for Politico about a presidential run by Roger Ailes. Friends and associates are encouraging Fox News chief Roger Ailes to jump into the political arena for real by running for president in 2012, top sources tell POLITICO. "Ailes knows how to frame an issue better than anybody, and that's what we need now," says one ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 23, 2009 17:25
Limbaugh: Reporter Should Kill Himself
Rush Limbaugh has gotten everyone from Media Matters to The Guardian to Andrew Sullivan to Paul Krugman to Raw Story to FireDogLake up in arms because he allegedly suggested that a NYT reporter kill himself. Except that, to anyone familiar with either Limbaugh or the conventions of American English, it's rather obvious he was illustrating absurdity by being absurd. Here's the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 21, 2009 10:30
Limbaugh, Obama, and the NFL
Joseph Ashby argues that something fishy is being ignored in the matter of Rush Limbaugh's failed bid to buy the Rams. NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith served as counsel to Attorney General Eric Holder and was a member of Barack Obama’s transition team. [...] Despite the fact that Smith’s opposition was based on Limbaugh’s political commentary, the report failed to mention ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 16, 2009 12:57
Punt the NFL
Glenn Reynolds links some poor sap who is angry at the NFL because Rush Limbaugh has been dumped from the group bidding for the Rams and is going to start a one-man boycott under the banner "Punt the NFL." I have cancelled my DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket package (including the Supercast). I will not watch ONE MINUTE of NFL games or ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 15, 2009 11:26
Rush Limbaugh Dropped from Rams Bid Team
Missouri native Rush Limbaugh has been dropped from membership in a group seeking to buy the St. Louis Rams and keep them in the city. This speeds up the inevitable conclusion fo the NFL's owners refusing to let the controversial pundit join their ranks. Limbaugh was to be a limited partner in a group headed by St. Louis Blues chairman Dave ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 15, 2009 09:25
Limbaugh: Kennedy Lion of the Senate, We Were His Prey
Too soon Rush, too soon: "Discussing the passing of the lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy . . . and were were his prey." via Teresa KopecPosted in Outside The Beltway on August 26, 2009 13:33
Intellectual Dishonesty
Conor Friedersdorf wants to ban several conservative talk hosts from news programs cable news networks on the grounds that they "consistently prove themselves to be intellectually dishonest, intemperate partisans whose very approach to public discourse is deeply destructive of it." This strikes E.D. Kain as "reprehensible" because "Intellectual dishonesty is not something you can scientifically pin down. One man’s intellectually ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 14, 2009 10:13
Two Political Blogospheres
Two blogging conventions, Netroots Nation (the successor to Daily Kos) and RightOnline, are being held in Pittsburgh this week. As Timothy McNulty reports for the Post-Gazette, they're different in ways other than politics. The RightOnline conference starting tomorrow morning at the Sheraton Station Square will have about a quarter of the 2,000 attendees at the liberal conference in the convention center, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 13, 2009 10:47
Obama Revamps White House Communications
Danny Glover reports on President Obama's total restructuring of the White House message machine in a piece ominously titled "The Cost of Controlling The Press." Barack Obama's White House is spending more than $80,000 a week to staff its old and new media offices. Add the price of speechwriters and the White House communications tab reaches nearly $100,000 a week, or ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 8, 2009 07:21
Ted Rall: Obama Should Resign
It's been years since I've quoted Ted Rall here. He hasn't appeared in a post title since September 2005's "Rall: Charities are for Suckers." The man's eminently quotable, if in a train wreck sort of way, but constantly pointing out that some commentators are crazy attention whores really doesn't advance the debate much. But you've got to hand it to ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 30, 2009 07:22
Fox News Not Conservative
So says E.D. Kain: Fox News is simply not conservative. The fact of the matter is, I find NPR and even News Hour more conservative than Fox - but in a different sense, I suppose, than the standard boiler plate conservatism that has so infested American politics. What I mean to say is that the conservatism of Fox News tends to ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 20, 2009 13:06
Quotes of the Day – Big Government Edition
"It was easier for Obama to fire the CEO of a private company than it is to fire most federal employees." - Radley Balko "I don't know if you know this or not but starting today the United States government will stand behind your warranty on a newly purchased General Motors car. Now, that's going to be cool, isn't it? You ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 31, 2009 13:32
Rush Limbaugh’s Approval at 19 Percent
CBS' Brian Montopoli reports on a new poll by his network that has Rush Limbaugh's favorability ratings at 19 percent: No talk show host in history has been re-elected with numbers that low. Oh, wait . . .Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 18, 2009 08:53
Organizing for America: Obama Merges Campaign, Presidency
Chris Cillizza's report that the Obama campaign apparatus is being "activated" by the Obama administration gets A1 treatment in today's WaPo: President Obama will kick off an all-out grass-roots effort today urging Congress to pass his $3.55 trillion budget, activating the extensive campaign apparatus he built during his successful 2008 candidacy for the first time since taking office. The campaign, which will ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 16, 2009 12:32
