As part of his effort to earn "ridiculous" amounts of money and "replenish the ol' coffers," George W. Bush Tuesday headed to Calgary for his first post-presidential speech. But while lawyers and shoe throwers gathered to protest the man many north of the border now view as a war criminal, most Americans have largely forgotten […]

Around the blogosphere, readers were shocked - shocked! - to learn that Fox News had deceptively edited a six-month old video to create the false impression that Vice President Joe Biden believes "the fundamentals of the economy are strong." But while Fox is guilty of ham-handed splicing, it's worth noting that the network is a […]

One day after Dick Cheney claimed President Obama is making the nation less safe, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs joked that CNN invited the former vice president only because "Rush Limbaugh was busy" and Cheney was "the next most popular member of the Republican cabal" available. But when CBS' Chip Reid protested the "sarcastic" […]

Among the least compelling story lines in the continuing internecine Republican conflict is the war of words between Meghan McCain and Laura Ingraham. After Ingraham dissed as "plus-sized" the presidential candidate's daughter turned blogger, McCain responded by telling her to "kiss my fat ass." When McCain asked on ABC's The View, "What kind of message […]

Just days after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pooh-poohed the escalating chaos in the streets of Baghdad, saying with a shrug, "stuff happens." Now six years later, former Vice President Dick Cheney has elevated Rumsfeld's flip response to the level of theory in defending the Bush administration's eight-year record of failure. […]

Jon Stewart's demolition Thursday of CNBC's Jim Cramer may pale in importance to Edward R. Murrow's historic 1954 take-down of Joe McCarthy, but those who most likely would have backed the red-baiting Wisconsin Senator are just as unhappy about it. Former MSNBC conservative commentator Tucker Carlson is at the top of that list. Carlson, perhaps […]

Two days after Americans learned that U.S. household wealth plummeted by a staggering $11 trillion (an 18% drop) in 2008, the Washington Post featured a critique of President Obama's rhetoric attributing the recession to George W. Bush. But while Obama's statement that "by any measure, my administration has inherited a fiscal disaster" is inescapably true, […]

Some time ago, I did a presentation (video here, slides here) arguing that American politics has been transformed into just another form of entertainment. And that blurring of news, politics and opinion, I contended, posed a grave threat to American democracy as a well-informed citizenry devolved into what Al Gore deemed the "well amused audience." […]

As part of his twilight struggle to remain relevant in national politics, failed Republican White House hopeful John McCain has apparently launched a new effort to block some of President Obama's executive branch nominees. But while the Arizona Senator claims his opposition to Christopher Hill as ambassador to Iraq is based on concerns over his […]

On the very day Politico detailed the concerted effort by former Bush aides to resuscitate their boss' moribund legacy, his one-time press secretary Ari Fleischer battled MSNBC's Chris Matthews on the subject of the Iraq war. But while a newly tenacious Matthews turned on a Bush White House he once praised as "good guys," Fleischer […]