For the next few days, I'll be blogging intermittently from the Netroots Nation (formerly YearlyKos) conference in Austin, Texas. While most eyes will be on the headliners like Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Lawrence Lessig, Wesley Clarke and Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, there are a number of intriguing sessions I'll be checking out. On Friday morning, […]

Back in March when Hillary Clinton claimed she braved sniper fire in Tuzla in 1996, she wasn't pandering to voters in the swing state of Bosnia. But in swapping the Pittsburgh Steelers for the Green Bay Packers in his famous tale of duping his Vietnamese captors, John McCain Friday made a cynical play to win […]

Just one month after he tried to rewrite John McCain's record on Iraq, Jonah Goldberg is trying to whitewash his own past when it comes to serving his country. Today, Goldberg compared Barack Obama's call for national service with slavery in a bilious Los Angeles Times op-ed that conveniently forgot to mention either Iraq or […]

Over at the National Review on Saturday, Kathryn Jean Lopez suggested a novel future for George W. Bush after he completes his disastrous tenure in the White House. The most unpopular President in modern times, Lopez insists, would "make an awesome high-school government teacher." But leaving aside for the moment his obvious aversion to academic […]

Every presidential campaign has its pivotal moments as defined or, in some cases, abetted by the media. 2008 is shaping up as no exception. At the very time when Barack Obama is said to be inoculating himself against the far left liberal label with his positions on FISA, gun rights, the death penalty and federal […]

Back in 2000, Democratic strategist and political writer Cliff Schecter contributed $20 to the presidential campaign of Arizona Republican Senator John McCain. An admirer of McCain's independent streak then in opposing Republican orthodoxy on supply-side tax cuts and overturning Roe v Wade, Schecter admitted, "I trusted him." Eight years and seemingly endless McCain flip-flops later, […]

In case there was any doubt that former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson is now performing the same role for the Republican Party on the Washington Post opinion pages, today's column should put it to rest. Labeling former comedian turned Minnesota Senate candidate Al Franken a "vulgarian," Gerson proclaimed the Democrat's satirical writing of the past […]

As ThinkProgress reported earlier today, the execrable California Congressman Darrell Issa used the occasion of Tim Russert's wake to appropriate the memory of the late Meet the Press host for political purposes. Of course, Issa had guaranteed himself a particularly hot seat in Dante's inner circle long before he enlisted Russert on the House floor […]

In the wake of the Supreme Court's restoration of habeas corpus rights in its Boumediene decision Friday, John McCain and his allies on the right have predictably forecast an American bloodbath at the hands of terrorists unleashed from Guantanamo. While Justice Antonin Scalia claimed the ruling would "almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed," […]

On Tuesday, Jon Stewart welcomed former Christian Coalition wunderkind and Jack Abramoff scandal figure Ralph Reed to the Daily Show to pitch his new book, Dark Horse. But while the two discussed Reed's joining Scooter Libby, Bill O'Reilly and Lynne Cheney among the ranks of racy right-wing novelists, Stewart gave the disgraced lobbyist and failed […]