Month: February 2007
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Alterman misstates report on Novak/Rove
Writing in his Altercation column, Eric Alterman quotes from Newsweek: Indeed, [Richard] Hohlt is such a good source that after [Robert] Novak finished his column naming [Valerie] Plame, he testified, he did something most journalists rarely do: he gave the lobbyist an advance copy of his column. What Novak didn’t tell the jury is what
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The Summers myth echoes
The media’s distortion of what former Harvard president Larry Summers said about women’s representation among math and science faculty continues. In December, the New York Times said the “idea voiced” by Summers was that “women over all are handicapped as scientists because as a group they are somehow innately deficient in mathematics.” Then, earlier this
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The size of the GOP’s evangelical base
A noteworthy fact from The Atlantic’s Ross Douthat: And although Brownback is the only candidate in the field so far with Bush’s personal connection to the party’s religious conservatives, everyone—even McCain, even Giuliani—is actively courting them. This is partly because without evangelical Christians, there would essentially be no Republican Party anymore: Evangelicals provided more votes
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Man bites dog: Fox fact-checks Feith
Good for Chris Wallace for calling out the dissembling Douglas Feith on Fox News Sunday (via Atrios): WALLACE: Now a follow-up to our interview last Sunday with former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. Many of you asked us to check out the claim. Here’s what he said to us. FEITH: Nobody in our office said
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Are Hillary’s favorables “unusually high”?
Writing in the New York Times, David D. Kirkpatrick claims Hillary Clinton’s favorable ratings are “unusually high”: Mr. Keene said, “[Hillary Clinton’s] image as the wicked witch of the left was burned in the minds of conservatives and the larger public before she tried to moderate her image.” He noted that polls consistently give her
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The Giuliani foreign policy fraud
Jonathan Chait says what needs to be said about the bizarre Giuliani-as-foreign-policy-expert meme: he normal rule in American politics is that if you run for president and your experience comes at the state level, most people will assume that foreign policy is your weak point. You can overcome that political vulnerability–as George W. Bush, Bill
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Is Iraq exporting sectarian strife?
Instead of creating a model democracy in the Middle East, the sectarian chaos we have created in Iraq is apparently being exported to other countries by Iraqi refugees: Now [Laith al-Ani, a former American detainee] is among the estimated 1.5 million Iraqis who have taken refuge in neighboring Syria and Jordan, where sectarian rifts are
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Liberals forget the gridlock zone
It’s sometimes shocking how little people understand the constraints that the separation of powers, the filibuster, and the veto place on the US political system. To change policy, the Democrats would need a 2/3 House and Senate majority to override a presidential veto. There’s no way around that constraint. Indeed, Democrats can’t even send legislation
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When press conferences go wrong
My friend and former Spinsanity co-editor Ben Fritz, who reports for Variety, has a great story about a press conference gone wrong on his personal blog: This morning I’m at a press conference about a new anti-piracy study and task force featuring L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and various other government and business officials. As at
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WT finally corrects Lincoln myth
Editor & Publisher reports that the Washington Times finally corrected the bogus quote Frank Gaffney attributed to Abraham Lincoln: More than two days after an inflammatory quote used by a regular Washington Times columnist was shown to be fabricated — it was attributed to Abraham Lincoln, no less — the newspaper still had not removed