The Kicker

Remember back in July when the New York Times‘ Bill Carter

Noam Scheiber has done it again. This time, the Palin-phernalia he’s dredged up in his reporting about the political history of the Alaska governor isn’t just a doodle, but a full, two-page, handwritten letter, addressed “Dear Friends,” that details Palin’s reasons for running for mayor of Wasilla and for wanting to put Moderately-Sized-Bedroom-Community First: For […]

Politics are divisive and reductive, and voters are squeezed into ill-fitting categories that rub, chafe, and restrict movement. The line between rural America and urban America is one that most presidential candidates straddle poorly, elevating the farmstead as true and authentic; and, on the flipside, rendering cities as elite and immoral. For more on the […]

Also during Tom Brokaw’s appearance on MSNBC this morning, Joe Scarborough asked Brokaw, since he “had the best seat in the house,” to “tell us what your takeaway was from the debate? Did we have a turning point last night?” BROKAW: I doubt that we did have a turning point in a dramatic sense. There […]

The Economist’s “Democracy in America” blog is irritated by the National Review‘s myopic focus on Obama’s pronunciation of Pakistan last night: These are peeves, not about language but identity. Mr Obama’s “Pah-kee-stahn” is a shibboleth for a certain class: educated internationalists who know that South Asians pronounce the name roughly as Mr Obama does, including […]

On MSNBC this morning, an exchange between Pat Buchanan and Tom Brokaw: BUCHANAN: Tom, in the first debate McCain was criticized as being too tough or too mean. Did you get the sense he was trying to be tough at the same time last night and he was trying to be a nice guy and […]

At 11:30 last night, CNN’s Anderson Cooper announced: You’re looking at a picture of The Spin Room. That is one place that we’re not going tonight. I never understand why anyone would actually enter The Spin Room to talk to people because they just purely spin and even call it The Spin Room. We have […]

On yesterday’s post-debate episode of Hannity and Colmes–Live From The Spin Room!–Sean and Alan hosted Obama communications director Robert Gibbs. And, since the subject came up, you know, so many times during the evening’s debate, Hannity apparently decided that the Gibbs-as-guest situation justified him asking about–mmm-hmm–William Ayers. “How can you fight terrorism,” Hannity asked Obama-by-way-of-Gibbs, […]

…and other absolutely shocking revelations

Today, Eugene Robinson has an impassioned call to arms addressed to the media covering the campaign. …we should be relentless in demanding that the candidates talk about the economy and the wars and America’s place in the world. If they won’t sit down to be interviewed, we can shout our questions at them. If they […]

“The Place for Politics” has felt more like “The Place for Palin” of late. You can’t tune in to MSNBC (or cable news in general) in the last day or so without hearing, at length, from Gov. Sarah Palin on the stump. To which Andrew Sullivan says: Until governor Sarah Palin gives a full press […]

Kevin Drum wonders why Brokaw when PowerPoint will do? Why bother with a human audience or moderator at all? You might as well just select the questions, project them on a screen via PowerPoint, and televise the results. Wire the candidates up to received increasingly intense electrical shocks if they exceed their time limits and […]

There is a very real chance that the Katie Couric/Sarah Palin interview–“the gift that keeps on giving” to some; “the itchy rash that won’t go away” to others–will be part of our lives, like hope and love and cockroaches and styrofoam, forever. And today has brought even more evidence of the infamous exchange’s utter-refusal-to-leave-us-alone, this […]

Megan argued on Campaign Desk recently, after Fox News’s Sean Hannity first interviewed Gov. Sarah Palin (an interview Megan called “essentially a push poll with visuals”) to little day-after examination from media critics: [W]ho’s holding Hannity accountable? We can say that applying journalistic standards to people who clearly aren’t interested in being journalists is worth […]

An awesome headline from the Beaver County Times captures the “connection” between the crises on Wall Street and the environment. Endangered: Capitalism & Mammals. Kudos.