Remember that story about Frank Luntz giving up politics for Hollywood? In truth, though I passed it along last April after seeing it in The Wrap, I’d largely forgotten about it and didn’t think anything was unusual when I kept seeing Luntz show up as a political pollster. Jay Rosen?   Not so much.   He takes [...]

Steve Benen is a bit disappointed that I didn’t “follow [Charles] Johnson’s lead and reject what’s become of the contemporary political right” in my post responding to his departure.  In particular, he thinks I’m too easy on the conservative fringe groups and understate their hold on the movement. I continue to think this is a [...]

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 [...]

Mike Rappaport “hates” David Brooks and finds him “a despicable character.”  Why?  He lets John Hinderaker explain: Brooks . . . knows where his bread is buttered. He makes his living as a “conservative” who can reliably be counted on to sell out conservatives and Republicans at every opportunity. In this instance, Hinderaker is reacting [...]

Responding to a reader suggestion that blogger’s word counts be restricted by government (a rather apples-meet-oranges response to a post suggesting CEO pay be capped) Matt Yglesias only wishes it were so. Personally, I would love a legal cap on the number of words a blogger is allowed to produce per day. I’m privileged to [...]

Newsweek devotes its cover this week to the punditry of Paul Krugman, the most prominent leftist critic of President Obama’s financial plan. In his twice-a-week column and his blog, Conscience of a Liberal, he criticizes the Obamaites for trying to prop up a financial system that he regards as essentially a dead man walking. In [...]

For over a year now, we have been told consistently by the vast majority of talking heads and pundits that “things aren’t so bad” or “it’s looking up” or “the market/economy/housing market has bottomed out and will go up now” etc etc etc. Obviously, none of these things are true. For the past few weeks, [...]

Julian Sanchez and Jesse Walker draw a great connection that would never have occurred to me:  Joe Wurzelbacker as the Republican Cindy Sheehan. They’re at odds as to the relation. Julian: It’s hardly new to see political advocates whose non-ideological identities are as important to their public role as the substance of what they’re saying—but [...]

As everyone knows by now, Bill Kristol’s last NYT column appeared yesterday. Aside from the italicized footer “This is William Kristol’s last column,” it was unremarkable.  Which, most observers on the Left and Right seem to agree, was something it had in common with most of Kristol’s NYT columns and largely explains why the one [...]

Jay Carney, Washington bureau chief for Time magazine since 2005, is leaving the magazine to become Joe Biden’s communications director.  Mark Halperin broke the news with a one-liner but The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room has the closest thing to a detailed report: Time magazine Washington Bureau Chief Jay Carney has left that position, reportedly to [...]

Congratulations to longtime blogger Sean Hackbarth, who starts tomorrow as the Online Communications Specialist for the Senate Republican Conference. Sean worked briefly for the stillborn Fred Thompson presidential campaign and has worked in the PR/politics nexus since. Moving from punditry into flackery is a strange transition, as it necessarily means a loss of independence and [...]

Stacy McCain takes up where Jonathan Martin left off, first explaining why it’s so hard to break in to the paid punditry racket and then focusing on why it’s hard to get conservatives on the just-the-facts reportorial side of the paper: The newspaper business is one of the lowest-paying professions in America. Most years, my [...]