by Denis Campbell
Welcome to the toughest 1st year in the loneliest job in the world. Good that you have a dog and you’re not in Kansas anymore Mr. President. You approached the utter disaster left by the previous occupant with a determination, grit, grace and pragmatism that has long been missing.
Now sir you have to [...]

by Robert Reich
What we learned in August is something we’ve long known but keep forgetting: The most important difference between America’s Democratic left and Republican right is that the left has ideas and the right has discipline. Obama and progressive supporters of health care were outmaneuvered in August — not because the right had any [...]

By Denis Campbell
Create a vacuum, be unclear, waffle, negotiate with soul-less bullies and you get gamed in Washington and across the USA. These NBC opinion poll graphics are chilling. The healthcare debate handed Republicans control of the US House in 1994. Now, because Congressional Democrats cannot determine what they stand for together, they will all [...]

by Charley James
Dear Mr. President:
According to a senior White House staff member who attended Wednesday’s lunch with the Senate Democratic caucus, you told progressives to “back off” attacking Blue Dogs and ConservaDems for their opposition to meaningful health care reform including the desperately needed public option.
Say what?
No, Mr. President, I will not back off – [...]

by Madeleine Begun Kane
(Give her philandering politicians, dueling Republican gubernatorial meltdowns and Senator Ensign and it’s Christmas in July for MadKane and the rest of us! Enjoy one of the finest and funniest political wits on any planet! -Ed.)
Dueling Scandals
Senator John Ensign surely celebrated when Governor Mark Sanford’s soul-mate scandal took Ensign’s sex-capade off Page [...]

by Madeleine Begun Kane
Hannity Insanity
Few people are better at creating a Krauthammer-lauded “alternate reality” than Fox’s Sean Hannity. Columnist Dick Polman provides an excellent example:
On his Fox show one week ago, Sean Hannity told his credulous fans that President Obama had made a deliberate effort during his Cairo speech “to give 9/11 sympathizers a voice [...]

 
by Madeleine Begun Kane
My Homage To Feigned Outrage
May 14th, 2009
Republicans (and Joe Lieberman) have been staging yet another temper tantrum. What’s their grievance du jour? Speaker Nancy Pelosi said CIA leaders misled Congress about interrogation techniques.
The CIA’s under attack
By the Speaker who gave it a smack.
She accused it of lying.
The GOP’s crying:
She’s mean and must [...]

 
By Denis Campbell
“Kill him” and “terrorist” were hollered by audiences this past weekend in stump speeches by Sarah Palin and John McCain. Just as when McCain was asked “how do we beat the bitch…” he smiled and waved like the mischievous penguins in the kids film Madagascar.
Sorry but threatening someone under United States Secret Service [...]

Balloons fell from the rafters in St. Paul where the Obfuscation Talk Express (Straight, had left the building) crowned the King and Queen of the Republican Prom and eased on down the road to a 1950’s, Donna Reed Show style, lily-white, male dominated, middle class America, where the press politely knows their place and doesn’t ever [...]

Country first, ha(!), this was pure red meat GOP partisanship at its best as hitwoman Governor Sarah Palin gave a speech thin on specifics but loaded in every sense of the word with snarky attacks on Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
In the diversity challenged (read lily-white) Excel Centre, the red meat thrown up by Huckabee, [...]