Latest Blogs

At the top of Monday's Today on NBC, co-host Matt Lauer touted "breaking news" of President Obama announcing his re-election bid: "...the expected announcement comes with a prediction, he could become the first candidate ever to raise a billion dollars." Lauer then added: "Will Republican hopefuls sitting on the sidelines be compelled to dive in as well?" While fill-in co-host Ann Curry…

"We can't leave our troops on the beach." Ilario Pantano, a former sniper, sat in my office, rolling his shirtsleeve back down after showing me the United States Marine Corps tattoo on his arm. He wasn't showing off. He was making a point. "If my country is worth dying for, it's worth fighting for." Which is what brought him to Washington. He's put his life on the line in the Marines, and…

Via William Jacobson, at his influential  LegalInsurrection blog. Let's call it a case of unintentional honesty, or as Bill Jacobson described it, a classic "Freudian slip." In its article reporting President Obama's announcement of his 2012 re-election campaign, the Los Angeles Times gave the URL address for the official Obama campaign website as: http://latimes.com.   Too true! View…

Are you old enough to remember the polio-era line: "funny as an iron lung"?  After all, what kind of person would find funny the notion of someone fighting to breathe? Answer: Mika Brzezinski. Today's Morning Joe played a Letterman clip of a faux-promo for an imaginary TV show called "The Dick Cheney Story."  As the title song from the Mary Tyler Moore Show plays merrily in the background…

Does the earlyness of the announcement suggest some uneasiness on the part of the Obama camp, wonders Jim Geraghty? In any case, the official Barack Obama reelection bid was announced in conjunction with a hefty video, which you can see below the jump, Monday morning. One notable takeaway: Obama does not speak once in the video, and only rarely appears in person. Beyond that, it's pretty much…

In an argument which would make his ex-NPR colleagues proud, Juan Williams took to Fox News Sunday to push for tax hikes to reduce the deficit. Scolding Brit Hume, an exasperated Williams contended: “You’re going on as if, ‘you know what, we don't know in America how to help our own deficit problems.’ We do. We just have to tax people.” Moments before, in assessing Republican Congressman…

The New York Times vs. state spending cuts, take four. Reporter Lizette Alvarez led off Friday’s National section with a story on the plight of unemployed Floridians: “The Jobless See A Lifeline at Risk - Florida Eyes Cut in Benefits.” Alvarez’s story hyped the liberal compassion factor even more than a similar story in Wednesday’s Times, on a move in Michigan that will also trim state…

Veronique de Rugy is an economist you should get to know, for she is doing fabulous work at George Mason's Mercatus Center. On Friday, she appeared on Bloomberg TV to debunk some myths about debt and deficits while publishing an accompanying must-read piece at Reason (video follows):

The Roanoke Times has discovered that opening Virginia's highway rest stops to sponsors might not mean just more advertising for fast food. It could lead to  requests from opponents of the mainstream ideas of food and leisure activities: Gov. Bob McDonnell announced an initiative last week that would allow for sponsorships at Virginia's highway rest areas to help offset the cost of operating…

Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) previewed the GOP's 2012 budget proposal on "Fox News Sunday" today. For those that missed it, here's the complete 15-minute interview with Chris Wallace (video follows with transcript):

The disgustingly sanctimonious Howard Dean gave a lecture at Carnegie Mellon University on March 24 wherein he once again attacked Fox News calling it a propagandist arm of the Republican Party that lies to the American people. Ironically, during his one hour speech, the former Vermont governor committed some laughable whoppers of his own (multi-segment video follows with commentary,…

Politico's Roger Simon said Sunday Barack Obama is the greatest orator of modern times. Chatting with Howard Kurtz on CNN's "Reliable Sources," Simon also said journalists are just now looking beyond the President's speaking skills and analyzing what he's actually saying (video follows with transcript and commentary):

If you thought of a place on the radio dial on a Saturday morning where Sen. Tom Coburn would be pressed as squishy, it probably wouldn't be NPR. But on Weekend Edition Saturday, NPR anchor Scott Simon asked some basic questions about a budget deal, and then shifted to Grover Norquist's criticisms of Coburn for being a tax hiker. This could be seen as quite an anti-Grover segment, with how…

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was in his predictable defend Obama at all costs mode on Sunday's "This Week." When former Bush administration official Torie Clarke said unemployment remains high because the private sector is concerned about future regulations, the Nobel Laureate scoffed, "All of this stuff about uncertainty is just a myth being made up to blame this on Obama" (video…