The Kicker

Elizabeth Holmes, of the Wall Street Journal‘s “Washington Wire,” notices she’s the only woman in the McCain traveling press corps at the moment and counts three females “among the McCain staff on the plane,” which, she writes: [C]ontinues a trend of what, with the absence of Hillary Clinton, appears to be a lack of women […]

If you always suspected that those cable talking head classifications (political contributor? strategist? analyst?) were arbitrary and about as meaningful as the segments on which your average “GOP Strategist” goes head to head with his Democratic counterpart, Politico’s Daniel Libit reports that you were correct. Of the label “strategist” Libit writes: “Now used as a […]

When asked on Sunday’s Meet The Press if he’s “interested in being vice president,” after some back-and-forth with Brian Williams, Sen. Joe Biden said: BIDEN: If asked I will do it. I made it clear I do not want to be asked… WILLIAMS: Do not want to be asked but if asked the answer is… […]

For people who find this sort of thing urgent. Arianna Huffington has broken her silence. And waded carefully into the speculation of who might/would/should permanently replace the late Tim Russert. Before getting into naming names, Huffington reminds everyone of how criticizing a man’s work as a journalist does not have to equal criticizing the man […]

Anything that Karl Rove says in an election year is news. And so, on blogs and on cable everyone is discussing, as ABC News’ Christianne Klein first reported, that “at a breakfast with Republican insiders at the Capitol Hill Club” Rove said of Barack Obama: Even if you never met him, you know this guy. […]

Sigh. We’ve reached the part of the campaign season (if we hadn’t already, I’ve lost track) where the RNC issuing a press release — or, the “RNC sends out an email attacking Obama,” as was reported on MSNBC just now — is newsworthy (or at least, cable news-worthy.) And then, you know, MSNBC does the […]

A deep cynic might read Ken Silverstein’s recent reporting on David Broder and Bob Woodward having collected speaking fees (and other perks) from organizations that might sometimes lobby decision-makers and think, what’s so shocking about a couple of Big Foot Beltway Journalists holding themselves above the rules that might crimp the extracurricular money-making activities of […]

Yes, morning news shows offer ripe, low-hanging fruit for media critics. Yes, Fox News in particular revels in the Regular American Screwed by The Man! story. Still. This morning, Fox & Friends reported that a Florida woman was fired from her job “for laughing.” (The injustice! Why, if this happened last Friday, she may have […]

“[B]y assailing Clinton in gender-heavy terms in column after column” — 28 of 44 columns since Jan. 1 –“[Maureen Dowd] went over the top this election season.” So said the New York Times‘s public editor, Clark Hoyt, yesterday. Hoyt studied specific reader complaints about “sexism” in the Times‘ coverage of Hillary Clinton, called on the […]

David Brooks has an important column in today’s New York Times. Important, in the sense that it establishes a meme that will likely cling, like small-town Americans to guns and religion, to Barack Obama; and important in the sense that it will likely have traction in the campaign-trail discourse between now and November. That meme […]

Sometimes a quote provides evidence or elucidates a point. Sometimes it fills a hole and makes you scratch your head. From a Politico piece on how the Electoral College might come into play in November: [Former George H. W. Bush aide Lloyd] Green, who sees “about a 20 percent chance” of Obama winning the popular […]