If conservatives are furious about the Taliban prisoner exchange that freed Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the members of Team Bush are absolutely frothing at the mouth. Writing in the Washington Post, former Bush speechwriters Michael Gerson and Marc Thiessen suggested that at best, President Obama does not have the attitude that "we will fight you as […]

In 2012, Democrats won 93 percent of the African-American vote and 69 percent of the Jewish vote. Given the policy preferences of those voting blocks, the results should have come as no surprise to Republicans. But making matters worse, GOP candidates and conservative leaders insist on casually equating programs and policies they oppose to the […]

In the face of protests from some students and faculty, former Bush National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice withdrew as featured commencement speaker at the upcoming graduation ceremonies for the Rutgers University class of 2014. Predictably, conservatives were apoplectic, complaining "College campuses essentially operate on mob rule at this point." Former House […]

Ezra Klein launched his new Vox venture on Monday with a piece titled, "How Politics Makes Us Stupid." Looking at some recent research suggesting that "individuals subconsciously resist factual information that threatens their defining values," Klein concluded, "People weren't reasoning to get the right answer; they were reasoning to get the answer that they wanted […]

As they have for months, conservatives are trumpeting polls showing Obamacare's difficulty in winning the hearts and minds of the American people. While The Hill reported "four years later, Democrats wait for ObamaCare popularity bounce," the far-right Townhall celebrated a spate of negative surveys, including a 53 to 41 disapproval score in the latest from […]

Politics, it is said, ends at the water's edge. Or at least it did until January 20, 2009. Sensing yet another opportunity to bludgeon President Obama, the usual suspects on the right have fanned out across TV screens and op-ed pages to blame him for Russian aggression in Ukraine. John McCain, who defended President Bush […]

President Obama this week took the unusual step of appearing with Zach Galifianakis on his online ersatz talk show, "Between Two Ferns." If Obama's goal was to encourage younger Americans to check out the Affordable Care Act, then the President can rightly declare "Mission Accomplished": the Funny or Die web site is now the number […]

Bloomberg News this week offered the state of Washington as a powerful rebuttal to those who claim hiking the minimum wage would kill jobs. Washington, it turns out, has had the nation's highest minimum wage since 1998 and over the past 15 years enjoyed annual job growth well above the national average. New Jersey, too, […]

With Russian troops poised to sever Crimea from Ukraine, tough-talking conservatives are claiming they were right about the threat from Vladimir Putin all along. The Wall Street Journal interviewed former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who offered the West his lessons learned from losing the 2008 clash with the Russians. Meanwhile to the delight of the […]

Five years ago today, CNBC regular Rick Santelli launched into the infamous rant that many credit with birthing the Tea Party movement. That the Tea Party's toxic mix of blind rage, shocking detachment from the facts and periodic descent into racist rhetoric pre-dated Santelli's frothing at the mouth performance has largely been overlooked. Nevertheless, five […]