Month: January 2006
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Hillary Clinton’s “plantation” rhetoric
The New Republic says what needs to be said about Hillary Clinton’s “plantation” analogy on MLK Day: On Martin Luther King Day, Senator Hillary Clinton, flanked by the Reverend Al Sharpton, told parishioners at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem that the House of Representatives “has been run like a plantation, and you
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What is Roy Blunt talking about?
Roy Blunt, the majority whip and a candidate to succeed Tom DeLay as majority leader, spouts supply-side nonsense on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page: [T]he tax cuts have even helped reduce the federal budget deficit through record revenue growth fueled by an expanding economy. But as I pointed out, revenues are way down as
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David Horowitz cites Spinsanity on “Fahrenheit 9/11”
Controversial right-wing gadfly David Horowitz cited my Spinsanity column on Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” in an email to the History News Network, saying it “showed the film is a tissue of misrepresentations and outright falsehoods.” Given what we wrote about Horowitz, I’m surprised (and a little embarassed) that he endorsed our work, but I guess
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Robert Bluey on the Gore “police state” quote
I just spoke with Robert Bluey about his Human Events Online story from last week, which misleadingly trumpeted an upcoming Al Gore speech under the headline “Al Gore to Attack Bush ‘Police State.’” As I wrote, the decision to put “police state” in quotes suggested that Gore would use the phrase in his speech, even
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My encounter with Susan Schmidt
Washington Post reporter Susan Schmidt has been in the news lately for soft reporting on the Jack Abramoff scandal. So I thought it was worth mentioning my own run-in with Schmidt, who first became notorious for her slavish devotion to publishing spin from Ken Starr’s office during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which leads the website
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Elections are the key to judiciary
There’s an emerging consensus among Matthew Yglesias, Chuck Schumer, Noam Scheiber, and Dan Gerstein (sub. required) on the lesson of the Alito defeat: namely, that it is nearly impossible for a party that does not control any of the branches of government to defeat Supreme Court nominees (particularly given the Democrats’ structural disadvantage in the
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WSJ smears wiretap opponents
The latest attack on dissent comes from a Wall Street Journal editorial on January 7, which casually suggests that opponents of warrantless wiretaps want to help Al Qaeda. Its subtitle: “Bush critics seek war-powers loopholes to benefit terrorists.” The text of the editorial includes a similar suggestion: No one would suggest the President must get
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Harry Reid compares Abramoff/DeLay to the mob
Via Atrios, Harry Reid has gone overboard in a Houston Chronicle op-ed, comparing the Abramoff/DeLay corruption scandal to organized crime: In 1977, I was appointed chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission. It was a difficult time for the gaming industry and Las Vegas, which were being overrun by organized crime. To that point in my
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Gore doesn’t say “police state”
After making the groundless suggestion that Al Gore would attack the Bush “police state” during his speech in Washington, DC today, Matt Drudge is now running the prepared text of Gore’s speech, which does not include the phrase “police state.” Unsurprisingly, Drudge fails to note the discrepancy. Update 1/16: Thanks to Jon Henke for pointing
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Predicting 2008: Insiders vs. futures markets
The Washington Times’ Inside the Beltway column (free registration required) touts PoliticalDerby.com’s subjective power rankings of the 2008 presidential contenders. Notably, the site ranks George Allen #1 among Republicans based in large part on Ed Gillespie’s support: News that uber political guru Ed Gillespie has joined Team Allen has given the Virginia senator a significant