As she prepared for her final day in the Alaska governor's office Sunday, Sarah Palin's last week on the job produced more of the same head-scratching that has defined her 10 months on the national stage. Despite her demonstrated ignorance of Alaska energy production during the 2008 campaign, Newt Gingrich Wednesday declared, "Her knowledge of […]

After going to ground following his calamitous prime-time response to President Obama's address to Congress in February, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has stepped back onto the national stage to insert himself in the health care debate. But while his Wall Street Journal op-ed claims to show "how to make health care reform bipartisan," Jindal's simply […]

Despite 50 million uninsured, another 25 million underinsured, a steep drop-off in employer-provided coverage, costs forecast to rise by 9% in 2010, 1 in 5 Americans delaying needed treatment and medical bills involved in over 60% of personal bankruptcies, Mitch McConnell pretends to fear reform which "denies, delays, or rations health care." As it turns […]

Politicians of both parties routinely paraphrase Abraham Lincoln's mantra that "my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side." But in fighting his own civil war to hold onto office, disgraced South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has turned Lincoln's maxim on its head. Proclaiming in […]

As it turns out, free market conservatives can be bought - and rented. Four years after disgraced Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham pled guilty to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractor MZM, the venerable American Conservative Union sought millions from FedEx before backing rival UPS in a pay-to-play scheme that came to light this […]

As the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor predictably devolved into mindless Republican regurgitation about wise Latinas, empathy, judicial activism and New Haven firefighters, one revealing exchange about the impact of the September 11 attacks was largely overlooked. The 9/11 tragedy, Sotomayor insisted, "doesn't change" the Constitution. As it turns out, her claim […]

As he launched his first presidential run nine years ago, John McCain in December 1999 said of the Keating Five scandal that nearly ended his career, "The fact is, it was the wrong thing to do, and it will be on my tombstone and deservedly so." But as he made clear on Meet the Press […]

Rick Santorum may no longer a Senator, but he remains an endless source of amusement - and hypocrisy. In 2002, the devout Catholic blamed the shocking clergy sex abuse scandal consuming his church on Boston's supposed "political and cultural liberalism." Warning of the slippery slope to "man-on-dog" nuptials to be triggered by same-sex unions, Santorum […]

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton turned to Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias to mediate the crisis in Honduras. But even as President Obama from Moscow announced, "America supports now the restoration of the democratically-elected President of Honduras, even though he has strongly opposed American policies," Republicans in Washington […]

Attempting the political equivalent of relaunching the Hindenburg, soon-to-be former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin hosted ABC, Fox News, CNN, Time, the AP and other media outlets while fishing Tuesday. But even as she proclaimed of her abrupt resignation, "politically speaking, if I die, I die," Palin reminded Americans once again why she so deserves that […]