The New Republic

. . . to the husband of a furniture-store owner. I'm not quite sure why, but this local TV news report on the opening of Elizabeth Edwards's new furniture store in Chapel Hill left me very depressed. READ MORE >>

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Frances Townsend, the former Homeland Security Adivser to the Bush administration, took to the airwaves this morning to dispute Tom Ridge's claim that some administration officials wanted to raise the terrorism threat level before the 2004 election for political reasons. READ MORE >>

I don't agree with Paul Farhi's proposal that newspapers essentially shutter their websites and go print-only, but I don't think Ezra Klein makes the right critique of it when he writes: Farhi is saying that the media should make a decision to inform fewer people. To do its job -- if you understand its job as providing news rather making profits -- worse. READ MORE >>

An interesting bit of legislative history in today's big Boston Globe scoop about Ted Kennedy's ongoing efforts to make sure that his seat doesn't remain vacant for any period of time should he be unable to complete his term: Massachusetts governors used to have the power to fill Senate vacancies, as happens in many other states, until the Legislature made the change five years ago. READ MORE >>

A lot of the handwringing over Obama's bungling of health care reminds me of all the handwringing a year ago this time over his bungling of the campaign. In other words, I think it's overwrought if not completely wrong. But then I read an article like this one in today's WaPo and I start to wonder: READ MORE >>

From the NY Observer Jason Horowitz's profile of a trio of New York Democratic consultants, one of whom is Josh Isay: READ MORE >>

Via Ben Smith, Public Policy Polling has a new poll out about Americans' opinions about whether or not Obama was born in the U.S. and discovers that it's actually a very difficult to get an accurate measure, since, as the pollsters write, there are READ MORE >>

Tweets from a 28-year-old guy who lives with his 73-year-old dad and "just write[s] down shit that he says." Brilliant! (H/t E.H.) READ MORE >>

This time as defined by Jon Kyl, who told reporters today that the co-op plan (which Kent Conrad came up with as a compromise to the public plan) is also a non-starter for Republicans: READ MORE >>