Shrinking Brain

(Photoillo by Scott Dvorin)

Those Republican Blue-Collar Workin’-Man Backgrounds Are Beginning to Seem Rather Belabored

The blue-collar success stories piled up so fast at the Republican Convention in Tampa that one would have been forgiven for assuming that the party was made up entirely of the sons and daughters of garage mechanics, fruit pickers and removers of rotting animal carcasses from the nation’s highways.

Over and over again, speakers informed us of how they came from families of hard-working strivers, with parents who fought their way up from nothing. Such tales were almost de rigueur, especially if they involved “starting a small business.”

Before telling us how little girls now approach her with reverence and awe, Susana Martinez, the runaway egomaniac who is the governor of New Mexico, informed us that her mother and father started their security guard business by handing her—then an 18-year-old girl—a “Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum,” and posting her in the parking lot of a church during bingo games. There are those who might assume that this accounts for Ms. Martinez’s decision, as a prosecutor, to specialize in child abuse, but never mind. Read More

opinion

Santorum: Latin for Insane?

Rick Santorum should be an unworthy target for anybody with half a brain. The former Pennsylvania senator surely is one of the most simple-minded politicians to achieve national notoriety since, well, since Michele Bachmann.

The problem, of course, is that Mr. Santorum is a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. That makes him a legitimate subject of scorn and ridicule, despite his unfortunate intellectual shortcomings. Read More

Horse races

Republican Candidates Campaign In Iowa Ahead Of Debate And Straw Poll

Twilight of the Moneyballers! The Oscar Viewer’s Guide to the Primaries

As painful and alienating spectacles go, this year’s Academy Awards ceremony at least had the virtue of a certain grim efficiency. Billy Crystal, hosting the awards for the ninth time, desperately reprised his never-funny opening montage bit, where he’s cut into scenes from the year’s marquee films; when he launched into his still less-funny medley Read More

opinion

Birth Control? Really?

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum has become the darling of the Republican Party’s religious right as we head into the second quarter of the presidential primary season. Mr. Santorum’s views on many social and cultural issues are unabashed, although they are not particularly unique. He opposes gay marriage and the very idea that gay people deserve fair and equal treatment in civil society. He has attacked feminism as an assault on family values. And he opposes abortion rights.

Frankly, this critique is hardly new, as far as it goes. But Mr. Santorum actually goes further in his assaults on modern life. He has attacked the very idea of birth control, an issue that many Americans probably regard as having been settled 50 years ago.

Ordinarily, Mr. Santorum’s views could be dismissed as those of a crank. The problem is, it’s becoming clear that his growing numbers of supporters apparently agree with his implicit contention that contraception should be outlawed—in the name of Christianity. Read More

Mr. Romney moments after glitter impact

Secret Service Saves Mitt Romney From Glitter Bomb (Video)

A glitter-wielding activist fell afoul of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s new Secret Service protection detail in Denver on Tuesday. As the former Massachusetts governor worked the crowds after a speech, someone attempted to throw glitter on Mr. Romney, but he was quickly hustled aside by Secret Service agents. The glitter-throwing activist was removed from the event. Read More

2012

Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum Off Campaign Trail To Be With Sick Daughter

Former Pennsylvania Senator and current Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has canceled press appearances and Florida campaign stops to be with his 3-year-old daughter, Bella. Bella Santorum was born with a genetic disorder, Trisomy 18, that can lead to surgeries and hospitalizations. She is in Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia with pneumonia in both lungs and Mr. Santorum and his wife have been at her side most of the weekend. Read More

Opening Shot

Beyonce wearing Babyonce. (Getty)

Seven Days of Social Networking

How can you tell 2012 has begun with a bang? Just log onto Twitter: the hot topics since Jan. 1 are a Venn diagram of American life—from pop culture to politics, to sports and even race relations. It’s beginning to feel an awful lot like looking into a microcosm not too dissimilar to those sea monkey kits we cried enough about to have Mom and Dad buy one, only to have it sitting in garage next to whatever Santa had brought us the year before. In fact, Twitter has morphed into This American Life. Well, again, for sea monkeys. At least there’s a community spirit in the barrage of 140-character thought bubblettes: it’s one of the few times that you’ll find New Yorkers venturing outside their insular world and joining in the national dialogue ­… even if it’s only online and it turns out that our sea monkeys are just brine shrimp with great marketing.

So here was your week on Twitter. Read More

Great Headlines

Mr. J. Reilly.

Talking Points Memo Still Hyping Possibly Imaginary Rick Santorum Gaffe

Talking Points Memo reporter-blogger-videographer Ryan J. Reilly believes he caught former Pennsylvania senator and liberal whipping boy Rick Santorum in an incendiary gaffe during the GOP debate Monday night. “Rick Santorum Explains How GOP Can Attract ‘Illegal Vote — I Mean Latino — Voters’ (VIDEO),” screams the headline on the story, which was picked up by the Huffington Post and repeatedly promoted on Twitter by Mr. Reilly, TPM publisher Josh Marshall, and on the blog’s official feed.

But upon a casual listen, Mr. Santorum’s quote is ambiguous at best. In fact, it sounds like Mr. Santorum merely stumbled over his words and said, nonsensically, “the legal voters,” then immediately corrected himself to say “Latino voters.” Read More

Specter’s a Democrat, But Now What?

Arlen Specter and the Democratic Party leadership cut a deal that makes plenty of sense on the surface: Specter is rescued from a doomed Republican primary campaign that would have ended his 30-year Senate career next year, while Democrats pick up what will be (after Al Franken is finally seated) their 60th vote in the Read More