January 20, 2010 – 11:59 am
During the holidays Clark called me and said, “Ed, you’re lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground.” And I said, “What?!?” And he said, “Oh, nevermind, it’s just something I’ve been working on with a client. It probably won’t go anywhere. “The real reason I’m calling is this….” He went on to […]
January 15, 2010 – 6:43 pm
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this Friday about the earthquake in Haiti: “From my own experience with earthquakes, being from San Francisco, I think that this can be an opportunity for a real boom economy in Haiti…. It can leapfrog all over its past challenges – economically, politically, and demographically in terms of the rich […]
January 14, 2010 – 7:19 am
As any PR flak knows, the best way to knock your client’s bad news off the front pages is for worse news to catch reporters’ attention. Less scrupulous hucksters will fabricate rumors and stories to help move the media. But sometimes events just fall into place. So it’s been for Harry Reid. When news broke […]
January 4, 2010 – 2:43 pm
If there’s one storyline about President Bush I’ve never had any patience for, it’s the idea that he was on an endless holiday during his time in office. Reporters loved to bandy about the number of days the president spent at his ranch in Crawford or at Camp David. The “vacations” fed the notion that […]
December 22, 2009 – 10:44 am
‘Tis the season for family, and what better way to celebrate family than to bear witness to the diverse expertise of one prominent British house? So today we have former UK Chancellor Nigel Lawson on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page. Lord Lawson (indeed!) writes on the folly of Copenhagen – and carbon-control initiatives in general […]
December 18, 2009 – 12:05 pm
Health care reform has turned into a fratricidal war among Democrats. Liberals vs. moderates; Reid vs. Lieberman; Ben Nelson vs. the world. Meantime, poll numbers for the president, Congressional Democrats, and the reform effort are falling through the floor. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows more Americans would rather do nothing than pass the Reid […]
December 11, 2009 – 11:01 am
President Obama’s Nobel speech is winning praise from all quarters, and rightfully so. The speech was magnificent, beautiful in places and driven by a message challenging international diplomats and intellectuals to unite their ideals with a recognition of the world as it is. The president also, in the midst of controversy over why he received […]
December 10, 2009 – 10:29 am
The Wall Street Journal reports on a testy exchange between President Obama and Congressional Republicans at the White House yesterday. “At one point, the president told Republican leaders to ‘stop trying to frighten the American people,’ displaying a chart showing diminishing job losses over the past four quarters, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said […]
December 3, 2009 – 10:41 am
Tiger Woods screwed up and now, like flies on regurgitated honeydew, public relations experts are flocking to the media to explain how they would have helped him handle the situation much more effectively. (I’d link to some, but just Google “Tiger Woods PR fail” and you’ll get the gist.) Most of the Monday morning quarterbacking […]
December 2, 2009 – 2:51 am
Despite pronouncing the word “Taliban” as if he were a calypso singer, President Obama sounded and looked strong and confident in his Afghanistan-themed address last night. The optics were right, as the president was joined by row upon row of sharply dressed officers-in-waiting. The pace of the speech was good – the president not getting […]
December 1, 2009 – 11:05 am
Tonight, President Obama addresses the nation about his plan for Afghanistan. Presidents are at their most presidential when talking to the country about foreign affairs, particularly war, and President Obama has an opportunity to shine tonight. While Clark has elsewhere questioned the setting for the president’s remarks, I believe the US Military Academy at West […]
November 26, 2009 – 1:43 am
In October 1863, with his country mired in civil war, President Lincoln directed Americans to set aside the last Thursday in November as a day to give thanks for their “bounties.” Turkey was not mentioned, nor was one pardoned. Wal-Mart Black Friday sales, including Vizio HDTVs for as little as $349, still lay in America’s magnificent […]
November 25, 2009 – 11:09 am
Politico’s designated Obama-speech watcher/reader Carol Lee is up today with another analysis of the president’s verbal tics. Turns out President Obama may have an inflated sense of his own place in history. I know! I was floored, too. Here’s Lee: Perhaps it was a sign when President Barack Obama sat down in January to record […]
November 23, 2009 – 10:44 am
Kudos to House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (hold on a sec … waiting to see if my head explodes … nope, good) for seeing the war in Afghanistan as something we should all pay for. According to ABC News, the Wisconsin Democrat, who opposes deepening our involvement in Afghanistan, said that if we’re going […]
