Joe Scarborough
The Spending Problem We Don't Have—and the One We Do
Joe Scarborough is right about the deficit, but wrong about the solution
Spoiler alert: Tonight President Barack Obama will call for a "balanced" approach to deficit reduction. Republicans, their allies, and quite a few pundits will respond by saying the real problem is government spending—and that the president is ignoring it. It's what they always say. READ MORE >>
Scenes from the Conservative Bunker
The National Review summit's message: Obama is out to "annihilate" the GOP
Subterranean windowless “ballrooms” are the bane of contemporary political confabs, but the setting for the National Review Institute’s summit this past weekend, in the lower basement level of the Omni Shoreham in Washington, seemed fitting. After all, the rhetoric coming from Republicans has been increasingly bunkerish: President Barack Obama, the line goes, is not just out to destroy the American free enterprise system—that was the line for the first term. READ MORE >>
“Re: Nate Silver, most amusing thing about this election is watching political pundits make sports fans look like PhD mathematicians,” tweeted ESPN basketball writer John Hollinger earlier this week. READ MORE >>
The Charlotte Letter: Alone Time with Ed Rendell
Tampa Dispatch: The Geography of Conventionland
TAMPA—Conventionland is home to many different tribes. And, in a city as sprawling as Tampa, geography is everything. RNC press materials don’t provide a map of the different clan’s stomping grounds (something like the handy diagrams inside Game of Thrones). So, I’ll attempt to map out the GOP 2012 landscape for you. READ MORE >>
Romney Cribs from the GOP’s Willie Horton Playbook
The Real Strategy Behind Romney’s (Lying) Welfare Ads
Clearly, the Romney campaign's anti-Obama welfare ads have come at a cost. Given the way they have been condemned as false by even mainstream media sources—as Alec MacGillis pointed out yesterday, Joe Scarborough has explained that he was “stunned” by the ads' demonstrable falseness—the Romney camp has forfeited any hope of pivoting to the “high road” in response to future Obama attacks. READ MORE >>
Since When Is Swimming in the Sea of Galilee Scandalous?
As a journalist who specializes in topics at the intersection of religion and politics, no one would be more excited than me about a scandal involving the Sea of Galilee and GOP politicians. But I’m just not seeing it. READ MORE >>
Say It Ain’t So, Morning Joe
Nearly one week ago, I made a plea of sorts: for the political press to do its job when it comes to the basic task of calling out blatant, repeated dishonesty on the campaign trail. What got me going was watching Mitt Romney deliver this riff to hundreds of white coal miners in Ohio: READ MORE >>
In (Partial) Defense of a (Supposedly) Indefensible Ad
It's one of those days when the news cycle is moving faster than I can write about it. As of Wednesday afternoon, the chatter online is all about the Romney campaign's unexpected decision to cite his Massachusetts health reforms as proof that he cares about average Americans facing financial hardship. READ MORE >>
