What had been unexpected by the faithful at the Republican National Convention was McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the vice presidential nominee. McCain’s decision was cited as an example of his willingness to take a chance, to gamble everything on a hunch. It was much more than that.
Frenetic comic Robin Williams didn’t wait for David Letterman’s cue to kick off his routine on “The Late Show” Thursday—he was already well into it within five seconds of sitting down, leaving a blinking Letterman trying to keep up as Williams went to town on the RNC crowd, starting with vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and on up to Karl Rove.
Just in time to remind some Americans that the fight for gay rights is about much more than driving Wedge IssuesTM between political parties every election year, Sean Penn and what looks to be a promising lineup of co-stars are bringing the story of San Francisco city councilman and gay activist Harvey Milk to movie screens this fall.
There are three great moments in this short video of McCain’s acceptance speech. First, a Code Pink demonstrator interrupts McCain’s speech and gets dragged out to chants of “U.S.A.!” Then, McCain fumbles and makes an antiquated tech-related joke about static. Finally, McCain delivers his speech in front of a blue screen. Stephen Colbert, eat your heart out.
The first installment of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s interview with Bill O’Reilly aired Thursday, during which the Fox News host drove a hard line about Iran’s nuclear program and the success of the “surge” in Iraq. “Why can’t you just say, ‘I was right in the beginning and I was wrong about the surge?’ ” asked O’Reilly.
Just how dangerous are evangelical zealots? A new book by Jeff Sharlet takes a close and disturbing look at the group known as The Family and its disturbing and apparently widespread influence on mainstream political culture.
He might have steered clear of last week’s Democratic National Convention, claiming that politicians were the proper stars of that show, but George Clooney didn’t miss his chance to charm some $900K out of American supporters of Barack Obama at a fundraiser in Switzerland on Tuesday.
New Orleans has figured into this election season as a reminder of the Bush administration’s bungled, uncaring response to Katrina. Yet amid so much talk of hope and change, on this anniversary of disaster, many in New Orleans hope for a change of policy—the kind of federal assistance that can make a dent in crises of housing, public safety, education, health care and levee protection. It makes sense for musicians to kick-start that conversation.
Once upon a time, John McCain promised to be a different kind of politician and a different kind of Republican. McCain wants voters to remember that man. But that man has disappeared.
Talk about role reversal. The Republican Party, which scoffs at the nonsense of “identity politics,” has staked everything on the compelling life stories of its presidential and vice presidential candidates.
In the imminent confrontation over the Employee Free Choice Act, an almost embarrassingly modest proposal, corporations are actually billing themselves as the underdog—the poor, overmatched peasant David against the Philistine monster Goliath.
Welcome to the People’s Republic of Alaska, where every resident this year will get a $3,200 payout, thanks in no small measure to the efforts of Sarah Palin, the state’s Republican governor.
Here is what we have gotten with John McCain’s vice presidential selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, picked in part for her extreme anti-abortion credentials: an exquisite endorsement of the pro-choice argument.
Government crackdowns on journalists are a true threat to democracy. As the Republican National Convention meets in St. Paul, Minn., this week, police are systematically targeting journalists.
Families deserve privacy about family matters, but families that want absolute privacy should stay out of politics. The question that remains is what, if anything, Bristol Palin’s plight may portend for the rest of us.
Pregnancy is indeed private, but the Republican meeting in St. Paul, Minn., would put decisions about pregnancy in the hands of the government and replace sex information with disinformation. No, you don’t have to pass judgment on a 17-year-old to pass judgment on these unrelenting policymakers.
NATO has now been broken because it was used by the United States and the European NATO members as a tool for expanding Western power into the Russian “near abroad,” and after that, to make an inexplicably rash and dangerous effort to break into and split off portions of the Russian empire as it existed in the 19th century—long before the Soviet Union existed.
In Friday’s New York Times article about whether Hillary Clinton will go to the mat against Sarah Palin, a woman delegate at the GOP convention says, “I just bet Hillary was watching Sarah’s speech on TV Wednesday night and cheering, ‘You go, girl!’ ” Really?
Apparently undeterred by Sarah Palin’s challenging stance from the RNC podium Wednesday night, The Boston Globe and other media outlets went about their business of vetting Palin’s past, as with any other public figure who aspires to play a major leadership role on the world stage. As it turns out, Palin’s own experience on said world stage has thus far been rather limited.
With the mainstream news largely riveted on the U.S. election campaign and convention mania, little attention has been paid to the aftermath of the series of storms that rocked the Caribbean this past month. Flooding in Haiti has put 600,000 people at serious risk as hunger and disease rise in what Haitian President Rene Preval calls a “catastrophe.”
George W. Bush and his father share more than a last name. Reports show that August’s unemployment rate increased past the level initially forecast, rising to 6.1 percent. But even more disturbing is the fact that the misery index—unemployment aggregated with inflation—also soared to its highest level since 1991, when George H.W. Bush was in office.
The AP took a closer look at some of the claims in Sarah Palin’s speech Wednesday and found that the VP nominee, like some of her allies, is simply full of it on a number of points.
It’s hard to paint the other guy as an elitist when your wife wears an outfit that cost more than most houses. Vanity Fair estimates that Cindy McCain’s convention ensemble, complete with super jewelry, set her back somewhere in the neighborhood of $300,000.
Robin Wiliams ‘Still Feelin’ the Palin Love’
