The New Republic

When Comedy Central announced last spring that Stephen Colbert, one of "The Daily Show"'s most gleefully pompous faux-correspondents, would launch a 30-minute program of his own, enthusiasm was almost irrepressible. Over the next six months, The New York Times ran three articles anticipating the arrival of "The Colbert Report." David Remnick briefly chronicled preparations for the new show in The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" section. Comedy Central ran relentless promos for last night's debut. READ MORE >>

Gorgeous he was not. He stood a few inches over five feet tall. In place of his usual Savile Row suit, he wore a light blazer and dark slacks, and his shirt flared open at the collar. His hair was thinning, his tan fading. But, when he ascended the podium, the audience cheered. It was Saturday night at the First Congregational Church in downtown Washington, and George Galloway-- the most celebrated visiting orator in the United States--was about to address the antiwar crowd.Galloway's day job is representing an East London neighborhood in READ MORE >>

Gorgeous he was not. He stood a few inches over five feet tall. In place of his usual Savile Row suit, he wore a light blazer and dark slacks, and his shirt flared open at the collar. His hair was thinning, his tan fading. But, when he ascended the podium, the audience cheered. It was Saturday night at the First Congregational Church in downtown Washington, and George Galloway—the most celebrated visiting orator in the United States—was about to address the antiwar crowd. READ MORE >>

Sunny days grow (slightly) shorter. Beach umbrellas along the Pacific coast collapse and vanish. Notebooks, pens, and backpacks overflow the aisles of local stores. This can mean only one thing: It's back-to-school time for California's public school students. But for the California Teachers Association (CTA), the largest state educators' union in the country, summer break never even got started. Last June, just as the school year was winding down, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called for a special election to be held in November. READ MORE >>

The July 7 New York Times has an op-ed hashing out what the Catholic Church thinks of all things Darwinian. The author, Christoph Schonborn, is a preeminent Vatican scholar and, incidentally, one of the cardinals who was favored for the papacy after John Paul II died. He's also, as I've previously pointed out, considered something of a liberal. Which is why it's strange to see Schonborn get so prickly about claims of the Church's "supposed acceptance" of evolution. Schonborn tries to clarify the Church's position this way: READ MORE >>

It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good By Rick Santorum (ISI Books, 449 pp., $25.00) Click here to buy this book READ MORE >>

"That's him over there." It's just after noon on the day before delegates to the College Republican National Committee (CRNC) are scheduled to elect a new chairman, and campaign workers for Michael Davidson have finally spotted his opponent, the current CRNC treasurer Paul Gourley. The College Republicans have taken over a floor of the Crystal Gateway Marriot in Arlington, Virginia, clogging hallways and conference rooms with professional-quality campaign paraphernalia and well-coiffed twentysomethings in business attire. READ MORE >>

Last Tuesday, The Truth About Hillary, a lurid new tale of Clintonian conniving, appeared, and not since Monica has the right frothed so indignantly about Hillary. Strangely, they're frothing in her favor. Writing in The New York Post, John Podhoretz called Ed Klein's biography "one of the most sordid volumes [he's] ever waded through." The New York Sun editorialized that the book oozed "off-putting smarminess" and that it "debases politics and government and turns the talk to genitalia." Gone, too, were the softball questions conservative publications usually lob at such attack dogs. READ MORE >>

Fantastic: The Life of Arnold Schwarzenegger By Laurence Leamer (St. Martin's Press, 432 pp., $24.95) Click here to buy this book Schwarzenegger Syndrome: Politics and Celebrity in the Age of Contempt By Gary Indiana (New Press, 140 pp., $19.95) Click here to buy this book READ MORE >>

Sneaking Into the Flying Circus: How the Media Turn Our Presidential Campaigns Into Freak Shows By Alexandra Pelosi (Free Press, 320 pp., $33.25) Click here to buy this book READ MORE >>