James Carville has some advice for Barack Obama. It boils down to “be like Bill Clinton.”

I marked all of the following in my feed reader this morning, intending to post on them individually.  But, really, they’re all examples of common tropes that annoy the bejeezus out of me. 1.  Have you read it? Lots of folks, including Glenn Reynolds, are chortling over about Attorney General Eric Holder’s admission that he [...]

As you’re all likely aware by now, the man believed to have driven the vehicle in the botched Times Square bomb plot was arrested last night.   Thus far, three things interest me:  emerging evidence that this was part of an organized, international, terrorist conspiracy; the sheer ineptitude of the plot; and the media coverage.  This [...]

TV writer Steve Marmel takes to the pixels of HuffPo to excoriate President Obama for continuing his vacation in the wake of the failed Detroit terror plot. [T]he only thing that stopped 12/25 from feeling a lot like 9/11 was a failed detonator and a guy named Jasper Schuringa. Weather now seems like a quaint [...]

In my initial posting on the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Trial, I asserted that “there’s an incredibly good chance that Mohammed and his comrades will go free.  The fact that KSM was repeatedly waterboarded would seem to taint any subsequent evidence, including his own confession.” This was based on the presumption that the whole point of [...]

In new guidelines announced today, the Obama Administration has decided that it will deferring to the states on enforcing marijuana laws when those states have laws allowing the use of marijuana for medical purposes. The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, [...]

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 [...]

The Obama Justice Department has appointed a criminal prosecutor to look into alleged abuses of the CIA under the Bush administration. [Attorney General Eric] Holder has named longtime prosecutor John H. Durham, who has parachuted into crisis situations for both political parties over three decades, to open an early review of nearly a dozen cases [...]

Attorney General Eric Holder has dropped the case against Ted Stevens, NPR’s Nina Totenberg reports. A jury convicted Stevens last fall of seven counts of lying on his Senate disclosure form in order to conceal $250,000 in gifts from an oil industry executive and other friends. Stevens was the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, however, [...]

Tim Geithner is now officially Obama’s Secretary of Treasury. New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geithner won confirmation Monday as President Barack Obama’s treasury secretary despite personal tax lapses that turned more than a third of the Senate against him. The 60-34 vote put Geithner at the helm of Obama’s economic team as it [...]

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 [...]

The gang at Reason is concerned about the appointment of Eric Holder as the Attorney General, with both Dave Weigel and Jacob Sullum noting that he’s been a big advocate of harsher penalties for drug offenders, including marijuana users.  Sullum’s right that the choice is “strikingly at odds not only with Obama’s signals regarding marijuana [...]