The Kicker

Levi Johnston, Bristol Palin’s fiancé, “agreed to talk” to the Associated Press’s Adam Goldman (“despite the presidential campaign’s advice in the days following Gov. Sarah Palin’s nomination to avoid the media.”) Reports Goldman: Johnston is an avid hunter. He’s dark haired, tall and muscular, sports a bit of stubble and drives a red Chevy Silverado […]

Clark Hoyt on election coverage in the New York Times: Through Friday, of 270 news articles published in The Times about the election since the national tickets were formed in late August, only 29, or a little over 10 percent, were primarily about policy substance. And that is a generous tally that includes some very […]

Kudos to Mother Jones for some great muckraking when it comes to Palin’s foreign policy experience as Alaska governor. Not only do the governor’s calendars—562 pages of schedules that MoJo obtained under Alaska’s Open Records Act—show that Palin conducted no official meetings with Russian officials, but Palin also “had few meetings at all with any […]

Palin isn’t the only politician from the north side of the the 49th parallel having trouble in TV interviews. Here’s an awkward video of a CTV interview with Stephane Dion, leader of the opposition Liberal Party, where he grows flustered and asks for several do-overs to what seems like a simple question on the economy. […]

Saturday Night Live–the latest outlet, it seems, to fall victim to the blink-and-you-miss-it speed of the contemporary political news cycle–has initiated Update Thursday, a chance to move beyond its worst-timing-possible-for-news-relevance late-Saturday time slot to mid-week. The show premiered last night, and will broadcast next Thursday and on October 23. Yesterday’s show featured its send-up of […]

From the “alas, ’twas always thus” department: PEJ turns in a brief but interesting study of the long history of politicians mocking, disparaging, and otherwise hating on the press. “The more overtly partisan and ideological nature of the criticism—that the press is liberal—is relatively new,” the report notes. The modern critique by conservatives that the […]

I like Oxford American. Lots of people say it’s the New Yorker of the South, which is to say that some of its elegant, long-form pieces brim with Southern hospitality. The voices are polished, engaging. “Come on in,” they seem to say. Well, hurricane season winding down, and so Katrina and New Orleans are out […]

Barack Obama, having apparently decided that all the glowing press reports about The Imminence of His Victory and everything won’t be quite enough to put him over the edge with voters, is using a portion of his campaign’s I-don’t-need-your-stupid-public-financing fund to buy up thirty-minute chunks of network airtime on the evening of October 29, exactly […]

The Daily Show lampoons Fox News’s unique take on The Great Panic of 2008. That panic is not economic:

I had it in mind to write something about this McCain quote from today: “Look, we don’t care about an old washed-up terrorist and his wife, who still, at least on Sept. 11, 2001, said he still wanted to bomb more. That’s not the point here. The point is Sen. Obama said he was just […]

Because “any woman who sees this cover,” Republican media consultant Andrea Tantaros explained yesterday on Fox News, “will be shocked and horrified” by it. By the sight of Gov. Sarah Palin’s, apparently, hairy, porous, wrinkled face. TANTAROS: This cover is a clear slap in the face to Sarah Palin. Why? Because it’s un-retouched. It highlights […]

…it’s what they whisper. The Washington Times might endorse Barack Obama, “insiders” whisper to U.S. News & World Report. “Times lifers doubt Obama will get the nod, but just considering it is news…” If you say so.

You forgot about that Somali-pirates-holding-Ukranian-vessel story, didn’t you? The latest: that ship is still being held, NATO is sending ships to “protect vessels off Somalia’s coast,” and the AP is still in touch with that pirates’ spokesman. And, while a U.S. Navy spokesman who has been in touch with the hostages aboard the Ukranian ship […]

Reading some of the gripes CBS News’s Dean Reynolds writes up in his online Reporter’s Notebook this week reminds me of that reporter who complained about how hard it was to chase the elusive Clinton bus down the streets of Manchester, New Hampshire in her high-heeled boots. For example: Baggage calls are preposterously early with […]

Have you ever wondered why MSNBC and other news networks cover the irrelevant campaign talking points, a la Bill Ayers, ad ad nauseam? The mystery was revealed last night when Joe Scarborough appeared on The Colbert Report. “We talk about it because it’s not relevant. … We talk about it for a very long time […]