Patrick Leahy
The Bizarre Political Coalitions Forged By SOPA
Very, Very Bad Words
[Guest post by Isaac Chotiner] It has always been a question of earth-shattering importance: are newspaper Ombudsmen terrible because the job is a hopeless one, or are they terrible because newspapers make wretched hires? As urgent as this matter remains, one thing can be agreed upon at once: even those who believe the former must concede that the major papers have done an abysmal job of filling these positions. READ MORE >>
Walking the Plank
People's Choice
The Beck Supremacy
Going Rogue?
Contra Expectations
On his first day in office, President Barack Obama will head to the situation room for a video conference with his most important commander, General David Petraeus. If the conversation is chilly, it is not just the awkwardness of virtual chatting. Obama and Petraeus have a history. While Obama has called for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, Petraeus oversaw the deployment of more than 30,000 additional troops. To win support from the left, Obama postured as a skeptic of the general's Iraq strategy during congressional hearings. READ MORE >>
Earnest Goes to Washington
A Novel Approach
Today's Senate judiciary hearing on the attorney firings, mainly called, it seems, so that Karl Rove wouldn't show up, was notable for little new information and much senatorial outrage about White House deputy political director Scott Jennings's refusal to answer questions based on Bush's invocation of executive privilege (he used the phrase, "Pursuant to the president's assertion of executive privilege, I must respectfully decline to answer that question at this time," at least ten times--Chairman Patrick Leahy, who cut him off a couple of times before he got to "assertion," grumpily call READ MORE >>
'Nuff Said
In the aftermath of September 11, the FBI hired Sibel Edmonds--and hundreds of others who, like her, were fluent in Middle Eastern languages--to translate thousands of hours of backlogged wiretap transcripts and other documents. Edmonds didn't stay at the FBI for very long, though. In March 2002, after she complained to her supervisor about poor management, slow progress, and even a possible spy within the translators' department, she was fired. READ MORE >>
