Begala On Line One

8:04 pm EST April 24th, 2006 | Politics | Comments Off

Make sure you check out our interview with Democratic strategist and author Paul Begala on the latest episode of the Left In The Beltway podcast…

TNR Swings And Misses Again

7:04 pm EST April 24th, 2006 | Politics | 4 Comments

I’m glad my subscription money no longer goes to a supposedly progressive magazine that publishes columns by idiots who say that Democrats = Death. What next, Ann Coulter does an indepth essay into how exactly, Democrats are working with Bin Laden (Ponnuru even has a cover blurb on his book from Coulter)? What a waste.

McCarthy Says She’s Not The Leak

6:04 pm EST April 24th, 2006 | Politics | 43 Comments

Interesting.

The fired official, Mary O. McCarthy, categorically denies being the source of the leak, one of McCarthy s friends and former colleagues, Rand Beers, said Monday after speaking to McCarthy. Beers said he could not elaborate on this denial and McCarthy herself did not respond to a request for comment left by NEWSWEEK on her home answering machine. A national security advisor to Democratic Party candidate John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign, Beers worked as the head of intelligence programs on President Bill Clinton s National Security Council staff and later served as a top deputy on counter-terrorism for President Bush in 2002 and 2003. McCarthy, a career CIA analyst, initially worked as a deputy to Beers on the NSC and later took over Beer s role as the Clinton NSC s top intelligence expert.

Osama Bin Who?

3:04 pm EST April 24th, 2006 | Uncategorized | 22 Comments

The right wing yawns at yet another missive from the mass murderer their president has failed to kill.

Topic: Al Qaeda

Why Do They Lie?

2:04 pm EST April 24th, 2006 | Politics | 9 Comments

Aaron Barlow wonders

What perplexes me so is that Horowitz and the rest are certainly smart enough to know that they could do a better job of lying, creating fabrications so strong that it wouldn t be like shooting fish in a barrel to knock them down. The White House, for example, had to know that their go-to-war con would be discovered (maybe not so soon which could be why they went after Joe Wilson with such venom). After all, people would demand proof, even if the debacle in Iraq had turned out more successfully (from their point of view). Even Horowitz has the resources (read Scaife ) to do a better job.

The only answer that I can come up with is that these people really disdain Americans, consider us stupid, for the most part. And they must feel that the ones they can t fool are irrelevant, anyway. Abraham Lincoln said, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” The right seems to feel that it s OK to lie, then, if you fool enough of the people enough of the time. Knowing they can t fool all the people all the time, they don t bother to try.

Feingold On Foxholes

2:04 pm EST April 24th, 2006 | Democrats | 4 Comments

Some interesting comments from Russ Feingold about what ails the Dems in DC.

Wedge, Wedge, Baby

9:04 am EST April 24th, 2006 | Democrats | 45 Comments

It’s not often Democrats have an issue that so many moderate Republicans and independents split from the GOP on, but thanks to the Republican party being in debt to the far right, stem cell research is one of them.

Democrats are pressing their support for embryonic stem cell research in Congressional races around the country, seeking to move back to center stage an issue they believe resonates with voters and to exploit a division between conservatives who oppose the science and other Republicans more open to it.

The question of whether the government should support or limit stem cell research has cropped up in Senate races in Maryland and Missouri, and in House races in California, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin, especially in suburban swing districts.

“What Democrats want to do is gin up their turnout in the suburbs and divide Republicans, and right now they may do that,” said Jennifer E. Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “This is the first real wedge issue Democrats have had with Republicans.”

Here in Maryland Michael Steele was already in a bad position as a right wing Republican in a moderate Democratic state, but his numbers really got hurt when he compared stem cell research to Nazi science in front of a Jewish audience. This has given likely opponent Ben Cardin yet another front to distinguish himself from Steele on and show Steele and his party to be out of the mainstream.

Bill Frist and the Washington Republicans have stubbornly refused to give the stem cell bill a fair up or down vote in the Senate after it overwhelmingly passed in the House. It’s time to remind people about that.

Duke Lacrosse Coverage

1:04 pm EST April 23rd, 2006 | News | 18 Comments

There’s been two much coverage (its on the cover of Newsweek this week) but I’ve noticed a tendency to talk about the accused as “boys”, whereas in other cases people usually say “men” or “young men”.

Topic: Race

The New York Times Smears Hillary Clinton

1:04 pm EST April 23rd, 2006 | Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Last Sunday Anne Kornblut at the New York Times wrote a free ad disguised as a news story about a book of “quotes” that were designed to paint Hillary Clinton in a bad light. Of course, like most things designed as “research” on the right, the book’s quotes (did Ben Domenech edit it too, like he edited Michelle Malkin’s and Hugh Hewitt’s books?) are not sourced and probably out and out fabricated. So now, after sitting on it for a week, The Times has written a four paragraph correction of the original hatchet job.

Way to go, “liberal media”!

Topic: Hillary Clinton

New Orleans Mayoral Race

12:04 pm EST April 23rd, 2006 | Uncategorized | 26 Comments

Isn’t it funny that the two runoff candidates for New Orleans mayoral race are Democrat Ray Nagin (the sitting mayor) and Democrat Mitch Landrieu (brother of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu).

You’d think that with the Republicans beating their drums about how New Orleans’ Democratic infrastructure brought the hurricane and flood on themselves, there would be an opening there for a proud GOPer.

Interestingly, no.

Topic: New Orleans