Gerard Magliocca points to evidence that Justice David Souter is about to retire from the Supreme Court: Above the Law is reporting that Justice Souter has not hired clerks for the upcoming Term. While he is typically the last Justice to hire clerks, this is late even for him. This fact, combined with what I’m [...]

The juxtaposition of two headlines this morning at memeorandum was rather amusing: As it turns out, Michael Shear‘s “An Early Military Victory for Obama” and Shailagh Murray‘s “Obama’s Chief of Staff Grants Access, Gets Results” are unrelated stories combined through the vagaries of automated selection algorithms.  Indeed, the inside headline on the latter is actually [...]

Barack Obama is taking great pains to reach out to opinion journalists, Michael Calderone reports for The Politico, and it’s paying off.  After some anecdotes about Obama personally calling pundits who wrote negative things with respectful explanations of why they were wrong, Calderone observes, The communications team for President George W. Bush would have been [...]

The Old Gray Lady has another of the epic scoops that made them the Newspaper of Record. Ace correspondent Helene Cooper breaks the news in a piece of journalism titled “For Young President, Flecks of Gray.” Well, that didn’t take long. Just 44 days into the job, and President Obama is going gray. It happens [...]

RNC chairman Michael Steele was on D.L. Hughley’s CNN show Saturday night and people are slowly getting interested: Some obvious questions come to mind: D.L. Hughley has a talk show?! What’s up with that shirt Steele’s wearing? Mostly, though, people are talking about Steele’s comments about Rush Limbaugh. So let’s put it into context here. [...]

In an era where everything is the worst somethingorantother since the Great Depression or some other time, I suppose retro comparisons are just in style.   I’ve seen several references of late to the Republicans being stuck in 1997 or 1993 or whathaveyou.  Hell, I’ve made them myself. This one, though, puzzles me: With health care [...]

I’ve always liked Phil Gramm. He’s a charming, self-effacing fellow and his unfortunately named “Dicky Flatt Test” always struck me as the right approach to federal spending. I was, therefore, chagrined to learn, via Steve Benen, that Gramm almost singlehandedly destroyed our economic system. Time magazine, highlighting some of those most responsible for the economic [...]

Former president Bill Clinton got filthy, stinking rich by giving speeches to foreigners, AP reports. Former President Bill Clinton earned nearly $6 million in speaking fees last year, almost all of it from foreign companies, according to financial documents filed by his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The documents obtained Tuesday by The [...]

It’s been three decades since Ronald Reagan was elected and both America and the Republican Party have changed.

When I woke to an NPR report that Barack Obama had pledged, “Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency,” I had to laugh.  Not because I doubt his sincerity but because we’ve heard this sort of thing before. Bill Clinton promised us “the most ethical administration in the history [...]

The normally reticent Tiger Woods and the all-but-retired Garth Brooks will be featured in Barack Obama’s apparently-starting-early inauguration. Tiger Woods, who has tried to stay out of politics during his ascent to become one of the world’s most famous athletes, has accepted an invitation to speak at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday as part of [...]

Timothy Geithner neglected to pay a rather large sum in taxes owed to the Treasury Department he’s been nominated to lead. President-elect Barack Obama‘s choice to run the Treasury Department and lead the economic rescue effort disclosed to senators Tuesday that he failed to pay $34,000 in taxes from 2001 to 2004, a last-minute complication [...]

A series of media reports questions whether former New York Senator and Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton gave special treatment to donors to Bill Clinton’s charity.  AP’s Sharon Theimer has what appears to be the lead story. Secretary of State appointee Hillary Rodham Clinton intervened at least six times in government issues directly affecting [...]

One of the side discussions over the Blair House brouhaha has been that having the Obamas stay at the Hay-Adams Hotel would pose a major inconvenience for those who drive through that part of the District of Columbia, as roads around the hotel would be closed for security reasons.    With the hotel only three blocks [...]

The “trend toward dynasty politics” is getting out of hand, Charles Mahtesian argues in Politico. [Obama's] secretary of state will be Hillary Clinton, the wife of the former president. The Senate seat she’ll vacate is being pursued by Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of a president and the niece of two senators. Joe Biden’s Senate seat [...]

In its quadrennial no-brainer, TIME has named Barack Obama its Person of the Year. Oddly, it takes several paragraphs of throat clearing to get to anything like making a case for the choice: As Obama has moved with unprecedented speed to build an Administration that would bolster the confidence of a shaken world, his flash [...]

Jon Favreau, the 27-year-old speechwriter to Barack Obama, was photographed with his hand on the, er, lower shoulder of a cardboard cutout of Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton.  Dee Dee Myers, for one, is not amused. My friends from college and in the years just beyond can testify that I did some things then that [...]

CQ is calling Barack Obama to task for seemingly reneging on his campaign pledge to have a bipartisan cabinet. Now that President-elect Barack Obama’s Cabinet is, by his count, half picked, the odds are fading that he’ll have more than one Republican on his team — suggesting that his campaign promise to include Republicans may [...]

A new USA Today/Gallup poll shows that Americans think Barack Obama is handling the transition well and picking an outstanding team.  Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones: Americans widely approve of Barack Obama’s decisions, announced on Monday, to name Hillary Clinton secretary of state and to ask Robert Gates to stay on as secretary of defense. [...] During [...]

Richard Cohen and Ezra Klein are very disturbed by Attorney General-designate Eric Holder’s role in Bill Clinton’s 11th hour pardoning of Marc Rich.  Kevin Drum finds Holder’s role “disturbing” but not disqualifying and hopes he’s learned his lesson. I’m by no means a Clinton fan but the idea that Holder should be held accountable for [...]

Former president Bill Clinton is being “mentioned” as a logical replacement for Hillary Clinton, who’ll vacate her New York Senate seat upon her presumptive approval as Secretary of State. The task of choosing a successor falls to David Paterson, New York’s Democratic governor. Whomever he picks would serve for two years, before a special election [...]

One would think that a biracial president named “Barack Obama” who grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia would feel a certain freedom from the need to demonstrate his bonafides on the diversity front. Not so much, it seems. Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee — once the chief economic adviser to candidate Barack Obama — may be [...]

John McCain has caught quite a bit of flak for his rather cursory vetting process for his vice presidential selection.  Barack Obama is going to the other extreme, requiring applicants for even low level appointments in his administration to fill out a seven page, 63 question document covering every conceivable base. The questionnaire includes 63 [...]

P.J. O’Rourke lets his fellow conservatives have it with both barrels in a long essay worth reading in full.  Some excerpts: Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye. Our 28-year conservative opportunity to fix the moral and practical boundaries of government is gone–gone with the bear market and the Bear Stearns and the [...]

My Palin Derangement Syndrome post got a number of thoughtful responses, especially for a weekend post. My fellow Jacksonville State alumnus Stacy McCain, a Palin fan, thinks the internal debate on her role in last week’s defeat and her future as a Republican Party standard bearer is one we should have.  He objects strenuously, though, [...]

NYT has a feature on today’s visit by Barack and Michelle Obama to the White House for the traditional meet-and-greet with outgoing president and first lady George W. and Laura Bush. For nearly two years on the campaign trail, Senator Barack Obama rarely missed a chance to take a swipe at President Bush. The name [...]

In the discussion on Obama’s apparent 365-173 Electoral College victory, Rodney Dill asks, “How close is this, historically? The popular vote difference seems like it was pretty big by modern standards, but usually that would result in an even more lopsided electoral vote.” It’s an interesting question. Dave Leip’s Atlas has the results for every [...]

Matt Yglesias points to a new ABC/WaPo survey showing the racial breakdown in the presidential race: Among all white voters, McCain leads Obama by 7 points, 52-45 percent; that, however, is a bit less than the average Republican advantage among whites in presidential elections. Obama makes it back with 95 percent of blacks, as well [...]

Barack Obama and Joe Biden continue to pull away from John McCain and Sarah Palin in the national polls, bolstered by the economic crisis and superior performances in the first two debates.  The new WSJ/NBC poll parallels recent findings: Voters were much more likely to say they felt good about Sen. Obama’s handling of the [...]

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.” [...]

Josh Marshall headlines as “Sadly Nuts” a post responding to John McCain’s retort, to questions of Sarah Palin’s qualifications to serve as president, “If they want to go down that route, in all candor, she has far, far more experience than Senator Obama does.” Says Josh, Set aside the bravado. Can McCain possibly believe that? [...]

I just haven’t been able to muster the enthusiasm to watch much of the Democratic Convention coverage. It’s a shame, too, as I understand John Kerry, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden all gave the best speeches of their lives last night. Really, though, what were the odds? I’ll watch Obama’s performance at Mile High Stadium [...]

Adam Serwer laments the fact that Barack and, particularly, Michelle Obama have to humanize themselves to the electorate and fight back against an elitist caricature. [T]he Obamas are still fighting Jackie Robinson Syndrome, the reflexive double standards and often small, sometimes large, but always public humiliations that come from being the first black person to [...]

Peggy Noonan laments “The End of Placeness.” OK, quick, close your eyes. Where is Barack Obama from? He’s from Young. He’s from the town of Smooth in the state of Well Educated. He’s from TV. John McCain? He’s from Military. He’s from Vietnam Township in the Sunbelt state. Chicago? That’s where Mr. Obama wound up. [...]

Bill Gwatney, the chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party, has been murdered. A man barged into the Arkansas Democratic headquarters and opened fire Wednesday, fatally shooting the state party chairman before speeding off in his pickup. Police later shot and killed the suspect after a 30-mile chase. Police said they don’t know the motive for [...]

From the Department of You Can’t Make This Stuff Up:  Bill Clinton is now the poster boy for monogamy. Clinton’s advice to beat Aids: stay faithful Bill Clinton made a plea yesterday for a new emphasis on monogamy as a key element in the battle against Aids.  The former US president, not noted for his [...]

Josef Joffe pithily captures a point I’ve made repeatedly: In Berlin, hundreds of thousands will cheer a projection rather than a flesh-and-blood Obama on Thursday. After Inauguration Day, alas, Europe and the world will not face a Dreamworks president, but the leader of a superpower. Whether McCain or Obama, the 44th president will speak more [...]

Barack Obama would easily win the presidency if the citizens of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom were doing the voting rather than Americans, Gallup reports. Unless I’ve missed something, Europeans aren’t eligible to vote in our elections.   These surveys nonetheless provide interesting insights into how different cultures view things.   Gallup’s Zsolt Nyiri, Frank [...]

When I saw the headline “Hunter: This conservative activist is backing Obama” on memeorandum yesterday, I was intrigued.  Duncan Hunter, arguably the most conservative of the 2008 Republican presidential aspirants was endorsing a liberal Democrat?! When it turned out the “Hunter” in question was Larry Hunter, a fellow of whom I’d never previously heard, my [...]

The United States has not had a formal diplomatic presence in Iran since our embassy there was stormed and its staff taken hostage on November 4, 1979.  That may soon change, Ewen MacAskin reports for The Guardian. The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US [...]

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 [...]

Daniel Strauss sat through a session at the center-left New America Foundation yesterday and came away with an epiphany about John McCain’s campaign: “It’s what he’s saying, not how he says it.” Jeremy Rosner observed, A lot of people have noted he’s just very incoherently between the right and the center, between offshore drilling and [...]

This just in: Politicians promise lots of things they won’t be able to deliver if they get elected. Yesterday, we had the hilarity of John McCain’s promise to balance the budget in four years without raising taxes or cutting anything but “wasteful” spending. Today, we’ve got an analysis from the Los Angeles Times showing that [...]

Arthur Silber is, as am I, fascinated by the cult of personality surrounding Barack Obama.  He notes some anecdotal creepy gushing on a local radio show and then Reactions of this kind to Obama are fairly common. No, they are not this extreme much of the time, but such statements are far from unusual. And [...]

A group “dedicated to ending discrimination against and harassment of military personnel affected by ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’” reports that Darren Manzella has been discharged under said policy. Decorated Army Sergeant Darren Manzella has been discharged under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law banning lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans from military service, effective June 10. [...]

Marc Ambinder has a report entitled “Why Bill Clinton’s Miffed At Obama.” Given the man bites dog nature of that headline, my curiosity was piqued. It turns out that Clinton thinks “Obama ran against Clinton’s presidential record at times, implying that it was timeworn, divisive, and damaging to the party” and “went out of its [...]

Jane Hamsher wants to know, “If You Can’t Use a Computer, How Can You Be President?” I chuckled when I saw the story at memeorandum since, after all, it’s unlikely that any president before Bill Clinton could “use” a computer in any meaningful sense. (Maybe Jimmy Carter, who was a nuclear engineer in a past [...]

A Newsweek poll of registered voters shows Barack Obama with a whopping 15-point lead over John McCain, 51 to 36. Newsweek‘s Michael Hirsh is stoked. Barack finally has his bounce. For weeks many political experts and pollsters have been wondering why the race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain had stayed so tight, [...]

Matt Yglesias lists the people on Barack Obama’s “National Security Working Group” and finds that they’re “mostly names we’ve heard before in Obamaworld or else graybeard elder statesman types.” Kevin Drum is mildly disappointed, finding it kind of dull. And, indeed, there are no surprises here: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright Senator David Boren, former [...]

Pat Lang, a retired Green Beret colonel, is somewhat bemused at how much is being made of John McCain’s military experience. John McCain is an admirable man. There are many such who wore the uniform of the United States in adverse circumstance. Jim Webb, Chuck Hagel, Daniel Inouye, Bob Dole… Shall I go on? How [...]