Washington Post

I owe Ottmar Edenhofer thanks for two things. First, I am grateful that Edenhofer, a German economist who is "co-chair of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Working Group III on Mitigation of Climate Change," has a last name on which searching is easy. I quickly determined that his name last name doesn't currently come up in searches at the Associated Press's main web…

In the November 22 issue of Newsweek magazine, Daniel Stone defended the Obama administration by blaming the institution of the presidency for failures rather than the chief executive himself: "The issue is not Obama, it’s the office....Can any single person fully meet the demands of the 21st-century presidency?" The same argument was used to excuse an overwhelmed Jimmy Carter 30 years earlier…

Last month I noted the October 1 arrest of CBS Radio's Howard Arenstein on marijuana possession charges. The Edward R. Murrow Award-winning journalist allegedly grew pot in his Georgetown backyard. But just yesterday D.C. Magistrate Judge Kimberley Knowles dropped the charges against Arenstein and his wife, Israeli newspaper reporter Orly Azoulay Katz, after a witness for the prosecution…

Paul Farhi in The Washington Post reported that comedian Tina Fey received “a little political airbrushing” from PBS on Sunday night when it aired her receiving the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor from the Kennedy Center. These mean anti-conservative jokes were left on the editing floor: "And, you know, politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women […

A major news story this weekend here in the D.C. area has been the federal bribery probe that resulted in the Friday afternoon arrests of outgoing Prince George's County [Md.] Executive Jack Johnson (D) and his wife Leslie -- also a registered Democrat -- who was elected two weeks ago to a County Council seat. At the time federal officials told the media that more arrests were forthcoming,…

Ted Koppel on Sunday published an op-ed at the Washington Post wherein he claimed that opinionated television personalities like MSNBC's Keith Olbermann represent the death of real news. The "Countdown" host apparently isn't taking this lying down for he tweeted the following Sunday evening:

Despairing that the current income tax rates will be extended for all income levels, on Sunday’s This Week, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus declared: “I think that the conversation right now is deranged” and “crazy.” In measuring the long-term “cost” of keeping the Bush rates for those below $250,000 versus for all, she argued: I think that the conversation right now is deranged. We…

UPDATE AT END OF POST: Krugman tries to clarify what he said. Although he was likely taking a swipe at former governor Sarah Palin with the reference, Paul Krugman on Sunday recommended "death panels" as a means of helping to balance the federal budget. In a Roundtable discussion on ABC's "This Week," the New York Times columnist said of what recently came out of the President's deficit…

Today's Washington Post "Free for All" section included a letter to the editor from one R.E. Pound, a CIA veteran who retired after 33 years of service in 2009, some 31 years after being outed in a book as an operative. Pound took to task former CIA operative Valerie Plame for her "ludicrous" claim "that the exposure [of her identity] forced an end to her career in intelligence." After all,…

(HT: Phil Lawler/CatholicCulture.org) Major news outlets delivered a collective message about the Catholic Church this week. Here were the headlines: "Pope orders sex abuse summit" (Boston Globe) "Pope to Hold Sex-Abuse Summit" (Wall Street Journal) "Italy: Cardinals to Ponder Response by Church to Sexual Abuse Cases" (New York Times) "Pope summons cardinals over abuse: Vatican…

In Maryland, Prince George's County's top elected official, County Executive Jack B. Johnson (pictured at right on NB's home page) was arrested yesterday, and "is accused of accepting cash in return for helping a developer secure federal funding." Johnson's wife, a recently elected councilperson, was also arrested yesterday. The couple are both accused of "tampering with a witness and…

On Wednesday, the networks described President Obama's speech in Indonesia as a proclamation on Indonesia's religious tolerance. ABC's Jake Tapper breezed over it on Good Morning America: “Before his speech, the President visited the largest mosque in this, the biggest majority-Muslim country in the world.” He quoted Obama: “Those are the spires of the cathedral the Catholic Church over there.…

Former Nightline host Ted Koppel will use an op-ed appearing in Sunday's Washington Post to compare the current state of cable news to financial swindler Bernie Madoff and to express "nonpartisan sadness" over the success of Fox News and MSNBC. The veteran journalist touted the suspension of Keith Olbermann for donating to Democratic congressional candidates as "a whimsical, arcane holdover…

During the Bush administration, the media made much of political appointees supposedly editing and otherwise interfering with the integrity of the work of career federal government scientists, particularly on studies pertaining to global warming/climate change. Well now the Associated Press is reporting that an inspector general's report from the Interior Department released yesterday found…