August 31, 2009 – 1:32 pm
An excerpt of our friend Max Atkinson’s take on Joe Biden’s Ted Kennedy tribute: Of the all the tributes to Edward Kennedy I’ve heard over the past couple of days, the one that stood out for me came from Vice-president Joe Biden. A bit long, maybe, but there were moments of genuine sincerity that could […]
August 25, 2009 – 11:27 am
It’s a tough time for financial services firms to hold their ground in favor of free market economics. Given their lack of popularity and their IV drip of government funds, most money companies don’t have any leeway to resist government overreach. Which is why it’s refreshing to see Chuck Schwab make a run at America’s […]
August 24, 2009 – 11:07 am
The Republican Party is out today with a new Seniors’ Health Care Bill of Rights. As described by party chairman Michael Steele in the Washington Post, the guarantees include: Protecting, not cutting, Medicare; Prohibiting government from getting between seniors and their doctors; Outlawing any effort to ration health care based on age; Preventing government from […]
August 21, 2009 – 10:40 am
Earlier this summer, Ed, Jeff, Clark, and I had the pleasure of lunching with the editors of Politics magazine. Check out highlights of our conversation in the current issue, here, including war stories from the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush administrations; views on the rise of the celebrity speechwriter; and perspectives on the changes we’ve seen […]
August 20, 2009 – 8:36 am
Forbes’ latest list of the world’s 100 most powerful women is out, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on top, FDIC hero Sheila Bair at #2, and “performance with purpose” Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi at #3. Women to watch include Ursula Burns of Xerox, Chanda Kochhar of ICICI Bank, Johanna Sigurdardottir of Iceland, and Sallie Krawchek […]
August 20, 2009 – 6:46 am
The editorialists at the Wall Street Journal have been listening closely to President Obama’s town halls on health care and what they’ve heard implicates the president as his own fiercest opponent. A sample: Maybe you’re starting to fret about all those bureaucrats and bean-counters again. You shouldn’t, according to Mr. Obama. “The only thing I […]
August 19, 2009 – 3:39 pm
More from someecards.com on health reform:
August 12, 2009 – 12:59 pm
Since it’s the middle of August and we’re just phoning it in, here’s an interesting take on the current health-care debate (and protests) from someecards.com:
August 11, 2009 – 4:34 pm
Politico has some videos it describes as “Pundits on town hall tempers.” After seeing this Brady Bunch-style image teasing the clips, I took some Pepto Bismal and clicked over here.
August 8, 2009 – 11:01 am
Two quick health care nuggets today. First, Sarah Palin writing about the Obama plan on her Facebook account (that’s what happens when you leave the governor’s mansion): [W]ho will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in […]
Hints on humor, from my West Wing colleague Julia Lam: The Washington Post is shuttering “Mouthpiece Theater,” Howard Kurtz recently announced. In this past week, the satirical video series featuring Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza drew criticism over an indecorous Hillary Clinton joke. In retrospect, Cillizza said, “name-calling is never the stuff of good comedy.” […]
I’m glad Vinca broke the profanity barrier on Podium Pundits yesterday – and did it with such humor and class. I agree that “judicious” use of profanity can have “a positive, constructive effect” on a tense situation. For instance, when driving through Washington at rush hour, or when WordPress screws up all your formatting just […]
A minor scandal erupted in the UK last week when aspiring Tory prime minister David Cameron used some obscenities in a “jokey, blokey” radio interview. Worse than the vulgarity, for which Cameron immediately apologized, some critics suspected a calculated ploy — that he got “sweary,” as one blogger put it, to boost his cool-factor with […]
August 5, 2009 – 10:43 am
Sen. Max Baucus, after leaving lunch with the president yesterday, had this to say to Roll Call. “It was a, really, a wonderful meeting, led by a terrific man, our president, Barack Obama. And one of the Senators was saying to me as we walked out, ‘You know, it’s just so wonderful to hear him […]
I’ve asked here in much earlier posts if President Obama is grossly overexposed. Contrary to the Reagan Method, Obama seems to be always “stepping on his message.” In the days of the Great Communicator, the administration always had one clear message of the day or the week, reinforced by Michael Deaver’s imagery and the speechwriters […]
