By Steve Kornacki 12/09/08 2:57am

A False Alarm on the Obama Appointments

Barack Obama’s selection of Eric Shinseki to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, a position that has only been Cabinet-level for 20 years, is receiving an unusual level of attention. This is understandable, given the celebrity that Mr. Shinseki has accrued these past five years, as his pre-invasion estimate that the U.S. had sent hundreds Read More

By Joe Conason 12/02/08 5:31pm

Not a Team of Rivals at All

When the journalistic pack bites into a tasty cliché they often refuse to let go, lazily chewing and regurgitating a phrase like “team of rivals” long after the flavor is gone. Derived from the Doris Kearns Goodwin book on Lincoln’s cabinet, that morsel had scant relevance to the cabinet being assembled by Barack Obama, as Read More