The Kicker

In his New York Times column today Bob Herbert writes that the economy “is the issue on which the Obama people should long since have pounced.” (If not because so many Americans are experiencing “pervasive anxiety” from our troubled economy, as Herbert describes it, then because because of this, the economy is, as Herbert argues, […]

Location! Location! Location! Sometimes, stories about blogging and bloggers make the New York Times‘ front-page. A-1. Juxtaposed with the critical stories of the day. Other times, they can be found among articles about brides Botoxing their bridesmaids and advice on “awkward social situations.” In the F section. Such was the case for the Times‘ coverage […]

From a (Harrisburg, PA) Patriot-News profile of Chris Matthews packed with will-he-or-won’t-he-run-for-Senate speculation: A Senate run would demand discipline, said Chris Borick, a political analyst at Muhlenberg College. “It would be interesting to see if he could control himself under the spotlight of a senatorial campaign,” Borick said. At times, he can show great restraint. […]

As Liz reported last week, the LA Times Book Review has become the latest victim of the LA Times‘s bottom-line-eyed streamlining. The storied book review will now be replaced with “a smaller number of pages appended to the Calendar section.” Steve Wasserman, a former LAT Book Review editor and a passionate advocate of thoughtful, longform […]

While minority journalists stretched themselves into a soul-searching pretzel debating whether they should applaud Barack Obama when he spoke at the Unity ’08 Convention yesterday, someone thought he was getting no love from the mainstream media. That someone was not John “A Little Left Out” McCain; it was Barack “Too Good to Be True” Obama. […]

Washington Post ombudswoman Deborah Howell declares her paper’s Chandra Levy series “not worth 13 days, all on page 1,” adding that “the new information wasn’t highlighted sufficiently.” In Howell’s column about readers’ reactions to the series (“All but two of the approximately 75 readers who called or wrote to me were critical of the project”), […]

Christiane Amanpour’s question for President Nicolas Sarkozy during a Paris press conference with Barack Obama late last week: (h/t TVNewser):

Speaking of reading body language, both the Washington Post and the New York Times put on their front pages today pieces about Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla) and, specifically, per the Times, Democrats’ efforts to “break grip of the Senate’s Flinty Dr. No” (Coburn). Both accounts include the detail that Senators Coburn and Obama recently hugged […]

“It’s a body language investigation!” The IRE should have an award for this. Granted, no shoe leather was harmed (not a scuff!) during this investigation. It doesn’t require the resources of, say, a year-long re-reporting of “Washington’s most famous unsolved crime” or even some Gitmo series. What’s needed is a certain… in-studio gesticulation-judging ability. We’ve […]

“Breathtakingly inappropriate,” is how Eric Boehlert describes Ron Fournier’s email exchanges with Karl Rove from 2004 (Fournier was an AP political reporter at the time; he is now the Washington bureau chief). Writes Boehlert, in a piece titled “The AP Has A Ron Fournier Problem:” That kind of correspondence (“Keep up the fight” [wrote Fournier]) […]

Ben Smith links this hot-‘n-heavy behind the scenes report from Bild, a German tabloid, wherein writer Judith Bonesky describes the workout she shared yesterday in a Berlin hotel gym with Barack Obama. Some samples from the article: Barack Obama is wearing a grey t-shirt, black tracksuit bottoms – and a great smile! “Hi, how’s it […]

Chris Matthews likes Tom Ridge. Like, a lot. As in, really, really thinks he’s great. At least, one can’t help but draw that conclusion after witnessing the following exchange, which took place during yesterday’s episode of Hardball. Emphasis mine; I dare you not to wince. CHRIS MATTHEWS: With just two weeks now until the Olympics […]

A story on medical marijuana gets funky.

Over at The New Republic Noam Scheiber writes this of recent Mitt Romney as veep nominee speculation: What I don’t understand is this idea that Romney helps McCain on the economy, which everyone concedes will be the nominee’s greatest vulnerability. The basis for this claim is that Romney was a very successful consultant and private-equity […]

The Washington Monthly’s Kevin Drum predicted last Friday that either the National Review or The Weekly Standard would headline their Obama coverage “The Innocent Abroad.” And what’s the headline on ex-National Review and Weekly Standard staffer David Brooks’s column today? “Playing Innocent Abroad” Close enough for me. Well done, Kevin.