Campaign Desk

Understanding the Unaffiliateds

What does the uptick in independent voters really mean?

By Greg Marx   Apr 20, 2010 at 04:47 PM

With the midterm elections looming on the horizon, stories about voter frustration are all the rage. Today, USA Today takes... More

Bartlett on Shallow Think Tanks—and How the Press Jumps in Them

By Holly Yeager   Apr 20, 2010 at 09:26 AM

Think tanks are in Washington’s DNA. But despite their outsized role in our politics and policy debates, the press rarely... More

Merrill Goozner on Tom Friedman

Why health care costs so much

By Trudy Lieberman   Apr 19, 2010 at 12:58 PM

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman waded into the weeds of health care costs yesterday with a column about a... More

An Error, an Oversight, and an Overreaction

A closer look at the Domenech/CBS/White House imbroglio

By Greg Marx   Apr 19, 2010 at 10:10 AM

Is there anything left to say about the Domenech-Kagan affair? Howard Kurtz’s story in last Friday’s Washington Post describing the... More

Sebelius Watch

Does the administration want to make seniors wait longer for Medicare?

By Trudy Lieberman   Apr 16, 2010 at 01:30 PM

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has emerged as the person to watch as the Obama administration scrambles to... More

Sebelius Watch Archive

By Trudy Lieberman   Apr 16, 2010 at 08:00 AM

Below, you will find links to every entry in Trudy Lieberman’s “Sebelius Watch” series, in descending order. 09/14/10: Sebelius Watch,... More

Bad News for Ben Nelson?

The Cornhusker Kickback still grates on Nebraskans

By Trudy Lieberman   Apr 15, 2010 at 12:03 PM

A few days ago, I found myself a visitor in Lincoln, Nebraska, a city where I cut my teeth as... More

Audit D.C. Notes: The Post Explains Competing Stern Narratives; NYT on the Revolting Revolving Door, John Kay on the Failures of Economics

By Holly Yeager   Apr 14, 2010 at 04:35 PM

Since Politico’s Ben Smith reported Andy Stern’s planned exit from SEIU on Monday, there have been competing narratives applied to... More

License to Kill, Part II

Waiting for coverage of the al-Awlaki standard

By Greg Marx   Apr 14, 2010 at 11:15 AM

On April 6, government officials let it be known that the CIA, like the military’s Joint Special Operations Command, has... More

WaPo, with Optimistic-but-Anonymous Officials, Spins Deficit Story Forward

By Holly Yeager   Apr 13, 2010 at 03:05 PM

The Washington Post’s page-one story about the federal deficit is generating a lot of buzz, as it should. It’s got... More

The Never-Ending Story

Inside Huffington Post’s 11,000-word piece on progressive Democrats

By Greg Marx   Apr 13, 2010 at 01:52 PM

Media critics like to wonder whether there’s a place on the Web for long-form narrative journalism. But evidence that such... More

Finishing The Treatment

The New Republic ends its health care blog

By Trudy Lieberman   Apr 13, 2010 at 10:34 AM

Campaign Desk was sorry to see Jonathan Cohn’s last post on The New Republic’s health reform blog, The Treatment. Cohn... More

Audit D.C. Notes: Salon Asks Where the Women Are; WaPo on the American Dream, Revised; AP on “Years of Protocol”

By Holly Yeager   Apr 12, 2010 at 06:06 PM

Salon has a smart follow-up to a Politico piece we noted last week about a new generation of pundits. While... More

Columnists Call the Turn, Wonder Why the Rest of Us Don’t

By Holly Yeager   Apr 12, 2010 at 02:26 PM

There’s a new view taking hold in the commentariat: the U.S. economy is in much better shape, but the public—and... More

The Devil in the Details, Part VIII

What’s really in store for seniors on Medicare?

By Trudy Lieberman   Apr 12, 2010 at 01:40 PM

Health reform is now the law of the land, and the 2,000 or so pages of the legislation contain lots... More