Last week, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin joined the parade of 2012 Republican White House hopefuls posturing for GOP primary voters by refusing their states some of the $787 billion recovery package. Now facing a bipartisan firestorm at home from communities desperate for the stimulus spending, Palin is backtracking from her rejection of funds she mocked […]

If Politico has emerged as the ESPN of politics, covering the game but not the content of government, the Associated Press in recent weeks has delivered another media innovation. Time and again, the AP has delivered opinion pieces to its readers using the headline, "Analysis." But if a rose by any other name would smell […]

Ever since 9/11, analysts of all stripes have created a cottage industry in studying comparative fundamentalism across Islam, Christianity and Judaism. (In 2007, for example, CNN featured Christiane Amanpour's special report on "God's Warriors.") Now with the revelations from Israeli soldiers of atrocities committed during their assault on Gaza, new questions are being raised about […]

In just their latest posturing for the 2012 Republican presidential race, governors Sarah Palin (R-AK) and Mark Sanford (R-SC) joined Texas' Rick Perry, Mississippi's Haley Barbour and Louisiana's Bobby Jindal in announcing they would reject some of the federal stimulus funds allocated to their states. But as the steady one-way flow of tax dollars and […]

Facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees over her myriad ethics woes, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announced she may launch a legal defense fund. Decrying "the political blood sport" including the "the politically motivated Troopergate probe" which have engulfed her over the past year, Palin may turn to supporters to pay off the […]

On Friday, President Obama took the unusual step of sending video greetings to the people of Iran to mark the celebration of Nowruz, the Persian New Year. Unsurprisingly, many on the right were quick to scoff at Obama's call for "engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect" and paean to "the true greatness […]

The right-wing blogosphere is predictably abuzz in the wake of President Obama's shockingly insensitive off-the-cuff joke comparing his bowling to the Special Olympics. Following as it did Joe Biden's request at a rally last year that a wheelchair bound man "stand up," Obama's unfortunate appearance with Jay Leno isn't going to help matters for the […]

On the eve of the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war, Condoleezza Rice joined the long list of Bush White House figures taking to the airwaves to rewrite their boss' tragic legacy. "No one," she told Charlie Rose last night, "was arguing that Saddam Hussein somehow had something to do with 9/11." Of course, Rice […]

This has been a busy week for journalistic conflicts of interest. Over the weekend, former MSNBC host Tucker Carlson blasted Jon Stewart as a "partisan hack," a charge made without noting either his own 2004 bludgeoning at Stewart's hands or his ceaseless advocacy on behalf of Scooter Libby, a man whose legal defense fund was […]

During his first post-presidential appearance yesterday in Canada, George W. Bush said he would refrain from criticizing his successor, insisting President Obama "deserves my silence." Apparently, Dick Cheney did not read the memo. In a blistering attack on Obama just two days earlier, Cheney ignored Bush's Golden Rule. And as I noted Sunday, Dick Cheney […]