In the wake of last night's third and final presidential debate, a media frenzy has surrounded John McCain's latest human shield, "Joe the Plumber." But while reporters and bloggers continue to plumb the depths of Republican Joe Wurzelbacher's voter registration, unpaid taxes, distant links to Charles Keating, business license and other miscellany, one useful nugget […]

For the past two weeks, the McCain campaign and its allies have been waging an aggressive smear campaign designed to portray Barack Obama as out of the mainstream on the issue of abortion. But with his dripping condescension about the "health of the mother" in Wednesday's final presidential debate, John McCain turned the tables on […]

On Wednesday, the New York Times performed an election year public service with an analysis that was part history lesson and part thought exercise. Taking the example of the S&P 500 going back to Herbert Hoover, the Times rightly concluded that the Democratic Party "has been better for American pocketbooks and capitalism as a whole." […]

After days of conflicting rumors from his own campaign, John McCain emerged Tuesday to offer his new, new plan for the economy. While parroting Barack Obama's proposals to Monday to end taxes on unemployment benefits and a temporary reduction in the tax rates on IRA withdrawals, the centerpiece of McCain's latest economic policy spasm is […]

After a weekend of rampant speculation that Monday would produce yet another incarnation of John McCain, the only comeback from his campaign appears to be the text of his 2004 speech to the Republican National Convention. McCain's latest transformation - after McCain the Goldwater disciple, the Reagan footsoldier, the Maverick, the neocon, the experienced one, […]

Coming just 12 months after Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, news that Princeton professor and New York Times economist Paul Krugman garnered the 2008 award for economics once again has some conservatives apoplectic. But while some (for example, here and here) take solace that Krugman was not recognized for his punditry, many rugged […]

Back in August, Republican presidential candidate John McCain stunned the audience at Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Forum by citing Democratic Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis as one of the "wisest people that you know that you would rely on heavily in an administration." On Saturday, Lewis offered McCain some sage advice - and […]

Over the past two weeks, John McCain has learned the hard way that economics is called the "dismal science" for good reason. Plummeting in the polls as the meltdown of the global financial system exposes voters to his admitted ignorance of the economy, McCain is also being rejected by economists as well. As it turns […]

For the second time in two decades, John McCain and Alan Greenspan find themselves jointly linked to a major crisis in the American financial system. The New York Times' stinging rebuke of Greenspan Friday for his role in helping trigger the current Wall Street meltdown only served to remind Americans of John McCain's 2007 admission […]

On Thursday, John McCain once again resorted to his unique brand of political fraud. Claiming credit for potential future events as if they already happened in the past, he announced that running mate Sarah Palin was responsible for a $40 billion natural gas pipeline in Alaska that has yet to be built. For McCain, that […]