Back in May, Brendan Nyhan used historical and statistical analysis to presciently conclude that for the hitherto untainted Obama White House, "the first Obama scandal is likely to arrive sooner than most people think." Now, the dual imbroglios over the $535 million loan lost to bankrupt Solyndra and the ATF's ill-conceived "Fast and Furious" gun-walking […]

Five years ago, Massachusetts Governor and first-time GOP White House hopeful Mitt Romney declared, "People in this country want a person of faith to lead them as their president." Just not his faith, according to that most Republican of audiences at this week's Values Voters Summit. Hoping to capitalize on polls showing almost a third […]

As the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators House Minority Leader Eric Cantor called "mobs" took their protests to cities around the country, Republican frontrunners Mitt Romney and Herman Cain denounced the rallies as "class warfare." Meanwhile in Washington, President Obama signaled his support for a 5.6% tax surcharge on annual incomes over a million dollars in […]

It is altogether fitting that Sarah Palin finally ended speculation about her presidential prospects on the very day her boss Roger Ailes admitted he hired her at Fox News "because she was hot." But while her conserva-skeptics like David Frum pronounced her "already almost forgotten," her right-wing water carriers certainly remember why she made them […]

Back in April 2009, Daily Show host Jon Stewart summed up the Tea Party movement, "I think you might be confusing tyranny with losing." His description, it turns out, was exactly right. Tea Partiers complained they were "Taxed Enough Already" despite virtually all receiving tax relief from President Obama and America seeing the total federal […]

Addressing the Congressional Joint Economic Committee Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned policymakers to "avoid fiscal actions that could impede the ongoing economic recovery." Given the grim predictions for job losses and slower economic growth forecast to result from the August debt ceiling deal and the Ryan GOP budget plan, Bernanke was certainly right […]

For months, Republican born-again deficit hawks have been warning Americans that "we're becoming Greece." Of course, as FactCheck.org and Paul Krugman among others rightly concluded, "Greece -- with a long history of fiscal irresponsibility, very high public debt, and a country without a currency -- doesn't bear much resemblance even to the other peripheral Europeans, […]

In July of 2010, two dozen members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus led by Michele Bachmann co-sponsored a resolution announcing support for Israel "to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force." So, Tea Partiers must have been shocked […]

This week, Vice President Joe Biden inadvertently turned the heat up on his boss - and warmed conservative hearts - when he declared it's "totally legitimate" for the 2012 presidential election to be "a referendum on Obama and Biden and the nature and state of the economy" because "we're in charge." His candor and willingness […]

For conservatives in general and Tea Partiers in particular, South Carolina is often looked to as a model and a harbinger. 150 years later, the birthplace of secession was hailed as a forerunner of the Tea Party movement. Governor Nikki Haley, Rep. Joe Wilson and Senator Jim Demint (who hosted a GOP presidential forum on […]