Month: December 2007
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Best practices in opinion journalism
After the bizarre kabuki debate (see here and here) in which David Brooks, Paul Krugman, and Bob Herbert all wrote New York Times op-eds about Ronald Reagan’s 1980 speech in Philadelphia, MS without making clear that they were debating each other, it’s great to see Slate publishing a critique of Will Saletan’s awful race and
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Slate publishes a Saletan beatdown
To Slate’s credit, they have published a lengthy critique by Stephen Metcalf of Will Saletan’s disastrous series on race and intelligence. Here’s a sample (the emphasis is mine): In a semi-retraction, labeled “Regrets,” Saletan writes, “The thing that has upset me most concerns a co-author of one of the articles I cited,” and goes on
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Is the Obama kindergarten story real?
Over at Polysigh, John J. Pitney, Jr. questions the Obama kindergarten essay that I (among others) mocked Hillary Clinton’s campaign for using against him: Bloggers and reporters are ridiculing the attack. As a political scientist and former oppo guy, I wonder why such a well-organized campaign made such a blunder. As the father of a
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Hotline on Obama v. Hillary
A savvy take from the insider newsletter (subscribers only, alas): It’s no surprise HRC has gone on the offensive. What is surprising: her angle of attack. When HRC put Obama on his heels re: Pakistan or dictators, it shined the light on her one big advantage – experience. But now, Camp Clinton’s throwing around terms
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Shorter Obama v. Hillary on health care
Confused about the relative merits of Hillary and Obama’s health care plan? So am I. Let’s try to boil it down. Shorter policy debate (via Jonathan Cohn): While both plans will expand coverage substantially, Hillary’s plan probably covers more people. However, the health policy experts and economists are still fighting about this. Shorter political debate:
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Hillary bashes Obama’s experience (?)
How can Hillary Clinton say stuff like this with a straight face? Clinton wondered aloud if it made sense to “put America in the hands of someone with little national or international experience who started running for president as soon as he arrived in the United States Senate.” Obama was first elected to the U.S.
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Futures markets in silly season
Now is the time when the press starts to go berserk about every little change in poll numbers, but it’s worth keeping in mind that the fundamentals of the Democratic and Republican races have not changed as much as people think. In particular, as Josh Marshall points out, the Intrade futures markets still counts Hillary
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Obama & Edwards: A $9.50 minimum wage?
Isn’t the news in this lede the fact that Obama and Edwards are supporting a minimum wage of $9.50 per hour? Could former senator John Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama be considering a truce? For a brief moment Saturday night, that unlikely prospect suddenly appeared possible. Democratic presidential candidates had gathered here for the Brown
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More supply-side talk from Rudy, McCain
The Daily Howler’s Bob Somerby notes that vaunted straight talker John McCain told Charlie Rose that tax cuts increase revenue last Tuesday: MCCAIN: We’ve presided over the largest increase in the size of government since the Great Society, and we didn’t pay for it. And I think— ROSE: We didn’t pay for it because we
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Hillary’s kindergarten opp research
As Barack Obama’s campaign notes (along with many bloggers), Hillary Clinton is pushing opposition research quoting an essay he wrote in kindergarten: In kindergarten, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled ‘I Want to Become President.’ “Iis Darmawan, 63, Senator Obama’s kindergarten teacher, remembers him as an exceptionally tall and curly haired child who quickly picked