Month: January 2006
-
Columnist Koppel: Awful as predicted
Romenesko links today to my post bemoaning the hiring of Ted Koppel as a contributing columnist to the New York Times, as well as Jack Shafer’s critique of the predictably insipid mess: It’s not Ted Koppel’s fault that the New York Times has made him a Times contributing columnist. As Koppel writes in yesterday’s (Jan.
-
George Allen is well-informed about the Fed
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the man many GOP insiders think will be their next presidential nominee, inspiring confidence with his grasp of current events: Wall Street may be intensely interested in just about every word ever uttered by Mr. Bernanke, the former Princeton economist and chairman of the White House Council of Economic
-
The Wikipedia wars in the House and Senate
Via Michael Tofias, here’s an amusing story on the battle to control politicians’ biographies on Wikipedia: The staff of U.S. Rep Marty Meehan wiped out references to his broken term-limits pledge as well as information about his huge campaign war chest in an independent biography of the Lowell Democrat on a Web site that bills
-
Stuart Rothenberg: “A good Democratic year is building”
Wow. Based in large part on the Abramoff scandal, Stuart Rothenberg projects an eight-seat Democratic gain in the House of Representatives, and no longer thinks a takeover of the chamber is impossible: With a little over nine months to go until Election Day, Democrats are headed for gains in the United States House of Representatives.
-
Matt Bai and the problems with “objective” journalism
Matt Bai, the New York Times Magazine’s political reporter, illustrates the essential formula for “objective” journalism: all criticisms must be balanced with praise, no matter how strained or implausible. That gives rise to incoherence like this: Unlike most of his Democratic detractors, Bush has shown the vision to rethink time-honored orthodoxy, even at his own
-
What is Andrew Kohut talking about?
The director of the Pew Research Center discusses the vain hope for a third party or a “strong, independent political figure” with the Christian Science Monitor: If there is a genuine desire to bring the country together over policy issues, says Mr. Kohut, the more productive avenue would come via the rise of a third
-
What is Mike Pence talking about?
Mike Pence claims President Bush is “a man of unimpeachable integrity” and that “[t]he American people have profound confidence in him”: Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., who appeared with Thune on “Fox News Sunday,”, said all White House correspondence, phone calls and meetings with Abramoff “absolutely” should be released. “I think this president is a man
-
Steven Spielberg denies 9/11 analogy in “Munich”
In an interview with the German newspaper Spiegel linked on Drudge, Steven Spielberg denies the obvious implication of the closing shot of “Munich”: SPIEGEL: In a long closing sequence you show the — then still standing — Twin Towers of Manhattan, implying that you see a link between September 5, 1972 in Munich and September
-
Hurrah for Drum and Yglesias
With so many pundits making absurd claims about a third party in the US, it’s refreshing to see Kevin Drum and Matthew Yglesias taking a more sophisticated approach to the analysis of politics. Drum writes in response to a New Republic article by an ABC News correspondent who notes the parallels between 1994 and 2006,