“… you have no sense of responsibility toward anyone or anything. And that is a tragedy in a man and a disaster in a president.” —Gore Vidal, The Best Man
I never much cared for Gore Vidal, and I don’t like quoting him. He was an anti-Semite and a cynic whose sniggering contrarianism extended to Read More
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The one thing they don’t tell you about the RNC in the lame-stream media is how much fun all these guys have! It’s basically a week of comedy routines involving pretty transparently racist/sexist/homophobic humor; like a Dane Cook and Daniel Tosh special that just never ends.
Case in point: who knew that Karl Rove, former political strategist to President George W. Bush, was so good* at impressions? During today’s live interview with Politico’s Mike Allen, Mr. Rove did his best Ragin’ Cajun voice, which could give Saturday Night Live‘s Bill Hader’s James Carville routine a run for its money. Read More
Charles “Chuck” Colson, evangelist, author and former hatchet man for President Richard M. Nixon, died today, two weeks after surgery on a blood clot in his brain. Mr. Colson was 80 years old.
As President Nixon’s special counsel, Mr. Colson played a major role in the Watergate scandal. While serving on the committee to re-elect the president he took part in the plan for White House “plumbers” like G. Gordon Liddy to steal background information from Democratic foes. Read More
Jon Stewart sure picked the wrong week to take a vacation! The Daily Show host returned to the airwaves last night armed with week-old jokes about health care reform, which would have been a problem if they weren’t so funny. Particularly of note is the debate that happens between Mr. Stewart and Daily Show correspondents Read More
On the back cover of Karl Rove’s new book–Courage and Consequence–there’s a picture of him whispering into President Bush’s ear, which is basically what he spent seven years doing.
Mr. Rove told the Daily Caller he didn’t have anything to do with choosing the photo, and that it doesn’t really reinforce the ridiculous Read More
Within hours after the House of Representatives approved health care reform by a narrow margin, Republicans predicted retribution at the polls next fall. They promised to make every Democrat regret that historic vote as the first step toward the reversal of power in Washington. And as the current debate has proved, they aren’t going to Read More
In January 2006, we now know from a memo released Tuesday by the House Judiciary Committee, the name of Christopher J. Christie—then the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey and now the Republican nominee for governor—appeared on a list of potential targets for removal by the Bush Justice Department.
Eight months Read More
It's perfectly understandable why Barack Obama's conservative critics would latch on to this week's Pew Research Center report that stated that the president "has the most polarized early job approval ratings of any president in the past four decades."
It sounds damning and it offers the right a chance to claim the high Read More
On July 6th, 2005, The Observer officially launched the Media Mob under editor Tom Scocca with a post that attempted—and failed—to introduce an awkward portmanteau word we thought would capture large media companies’ incursions into the then-still novel medium of blogs. We called it (shudder) blogentrification, and described it as follows:
It starts with Read More
Ana Marie Cox, former Washington Editor of Radar, conducted a long interview with CBS News political analyst-turned-McCain-Palin campaign advisor Nicolle Wallace for Tina Brown and Barry Diller’s Web site, The Daily Beast. (The Observer‘s Felix Gillette spoke with Ms. Wallace earlier this month.)
Early on, Ms. Wallace jokes that she walks her dog, Read More
