Interesting piece by Christi Parsons in the LA Times, describing the drafting process for President Obama’s landmark speech in Cairo this past June. Here’s how it begins: “Reporting from Washington — He sat with his legs crossed in an armchair in the Oval Office, his brow furrowed. Aides clustered on the couches around him. They […]
As the Wall Street Journal reports today, “The president’s plan to toss back a few cold ones with some high-profile guests at the White House has the American beer industry hopping mad.” Why? Because the beers on tap — or at least in the presidential fridge — are supposedly Red Stripe, Blue Moon, and Bud […]
It’s almost August and the smell of pigskin is in the air as teams hit training camps throughout football nation. (Yeah, I just wrote that.) While NFL news has focused on players getting out of prison, mostly avoiding prison, or heading to prison, one player is generating some delayed attention for just visiting a very […]
In 1942, FDR gave a speech remembered for its peroration: “Look to Norway!” Today, as the United States tries to right our economic wreckage, we might well heed that counsel again. Check out this piece from NPR this morning, which describes how Norway has not only survived but thrived during the current recession. To be […]
Here’s Sarah Palin’s farewell speech from this weekend. Here’s William Shatner giving the beginning of the speech a poetic twist on last night’s Tonight Show.
That distinction belongs to Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” fiasco. For using the bully pulpit to bully yourself, Nixon’s noxious self-nailing ranks as a gold medal performance unlikely ever to be equaled. But President Obama’s outing last week surely takes the silver. By Sunday, Rasmussen was reporting that 40 percent of likely voters… […]
The big health care presser wasn’t the only press conference President Obama held Wednesday. Earlier in the day he held a joint press conference in the Rose Garden with Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki of Iraq. It was brief – just one question on each side – but each leader said something important. President Obama […]
Clark Judge, Ed Walsh, Jeff Nussbaum and I recently had the pleasure of sitting down to lunch with the editors of Politics magazine (formerly known as Campaigns and Elections) for a lively, on-the-record discussion for the magazine’s “Shop Talk” section. We’ll post a link to that article when it comes out in a month or […]
Here is a sentence unsurpassed in American historical writing for its poetic power and its intimations of moral and philosophic depth: “No political contest in history was more exclusively or passionately concerned with the character of the beliefs in which the souls of men were to abide.” The author was Claremont professor Harry Jaffa. The source […]
Under the category of “never waste an opportunity to point out what a dope Sarah Palin is,” Vanity Fair edits her resignation announcement “to whip it into publishable shape.” Which would be awesome if Sarah Palin had written a piece for Vanity Fair. But she made a speech to the people of her state and to millions […]
How would the media cover the moon landing today? This video gives a taste. The Wolf Blitzer moment is priceless.
Here’s House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explaining to Politico why she wants to lift the income level at which the proposed surtax to pay for a government takeover of health care would kick in: “I’d like it to go higher than it is,” Pelosi said Friday. The speaker would like the trigger raised to $500,000 for individuals and […]
The Obama White House is learning the limits of communications. According to Rasmussen, the President’s approval rating have shrunk to about where they were on Election Day: 52 percent favorable, 47 percent unfavorable. The difference between Mr. Obama’s highly favorable number and highly unfavorable is now negative seven percent. Looking at the charts of public […]
More from my West Wing Writers colleague David Litt: Our more cultured readers will recognize the title as the tagline from the 2004 classic, Alien vs. Predator. But it’s also what popped into my head when I thought about the public debate over Supreme Court justices. Here’s why. When George W. Bush was president, he […]
Twenty years ago, I was able to go to college thanks to student loans, Pell Grants, and parents who worked really hard to help me become the first person in our family to go to college. One of my favorite memories of Washington is the time I got to thank former Senator Clairborne Pell […]
