The Kicker

Breaking: “Presidential candidates air attack ads,” reports the AP’s Nedra Pickler. Pickler’s report, in full: Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are criticizing each other in new television ads. McCain portrays his Democratic opponent as a product of corrupt Chicago machine politics. Obama says McCain’s proposal to deregulate health care could have disastrous effects […]

Let’s get our definitions straight

“Presidential debates should be a little more like [Bravo reality TV show] Project Runway,” argues Time TV blogger James Poniewozik,” in that: [T]he best way to test someone’s ability to do a job is to get them to do it, not to talk about it. They’re about applying knowledge, not regurgitating it. Whereas a Presidential […]

…The Wall Street Journal! Per the paper’s analysis of the Bush administration’s proposed $700 billion mortgage buyout plan, currently under review in Congress: “The debate could expose a peculiar irony in the government’s rescue planning, because taxpayers are now both creditors and debtors in the housing mess.” Both creditors and debtors. Peculiar irony, indeed.

Today The Politico issued a press release announcing its post election plans. Bottom line? They plan to grow, not shrink, after November 4, with more print editions, at least 15 new staffers, and expanded coverage of the executive branch. To read CJR’s convention interview with Politico editor in chief John Harris, where he presaged some […]

In yesterday’s New York Times “Week in Review,” Patrick Healy wrote a piece headlined, “Let’s Call a Lie A Lie…Finally. ” It was not, however, a piece by a political reporter urging his peers to call a lie made by a candidate a lie (I, too, was fooled by the “Let’s”). Rather it was a […]

For anyone who has ever asked himself, “What’s David Brooks thinking?” Brooks…admits he is something of a throwback. “This is going to sound pretentious, but I try to be a 1950s public intellectual in 2008, in 800 words.” Just for fun, fill in the blanks, but imagine it’s Brooks’s co-New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd […]

An ad for a panel hosted by Mediabistro:

Call it the Goldilocks approach to political journalism. Many campaign-related articles we read are too cold (informative, maybe, but not terribly readable); many others are too hot (readable, maybe, but not terribly informative). The ones that strike a balance in their temperature–like “Moo,” Timothy Egan’s masterful treatment of Sarah Palin’s gubernatorial record, currently the most-emailed […]

AP issues photo eliminations on the images

Newly posted on Slate is an essay–a kind of analysis-meets-memoir–about Growing Up Alaskan. It’s a nice piece, evocative and full of rich detail, that paints a portrait of both the particularities and peculiarities of a culture that, apparently, it’s now our patriotic duty to be fascinated by. The essay is by turns touching and probing, […]

The McCain campaign has a new ad out attacking Obama’s legislative record. It begins with a voice-over: “On the biggest financial issue of the day,” the phantom voice declares, “Barack Obama would not say if he supported or opposed the government-backed rescue of insurance giant AIG.” Well. The voice, it turns out, belongs to Fox […]

PEJ releases research results that are fairly shocking: In the nine months leading up to the current Wall Street crisis, coverage of the economy—”which includes themes such as gas prices, banking industry troubles, the housing crisis, and retail sales”—filled only 9.3 percent of the total news hole. And—even more shocking—in the month leading up to […]

If you, as I did, thought that John McCain’s appearance on The View last week was as awkward as the show’s “Red, White & View” segments could get…well, think again. Because, this Monday, the Ladies of the Curved Couch will host…Bill Clinton. Yep: Barbara and Bubba, side by side! Watch out, Senator McCain…your Awkward Moments […]

Jon Stewart wasn’t too impressed by the Hannity/Palin interview, either.