Politics

Anthony Weiner and the Infidelity Police

Megan McArdle, a commentator for The Atlantic, believes that it's the valid role of the media to dig into our private lives to see if we've kept our wedding vows: I don't think that cheating on your wife, or lesser betrayals like sexting, are minor marital pecadillos, of no more public interest than whether you remembered to pay the gas bill or unload the dishwasher. I don't think it's the government's job to punish infidelity, but that doesn't imply that society has no interest in whether ... (read more)

2011/06/07

Andrew Breitbart Was Right About Weiner

Today, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) admitted that he sent a picture of his bulging crotch over Twitter to a female college student in Seattle and accidentally made it public. Obviously, my earlier post was completely wrong. This is my correction. At the outset, I'd like to make it clear that I have made terrible mistakes that have hurt the people I care about the most, and I'm deeply sorry. I'm deeply ashamed of my terrible judgment and actions. I am deeply sorry for the pain this has caused ... (read more)

2011/06/06

Weiner Story Another Breitbart Scam

Correction: Weiner story not another Breitbart scam. On Saturday evening, conservative activist Andrew Breitbart published a story suggesting that Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) sent a photo on Twitter of his underwear-clad penis to a female college student in Seattle. This story, like others pushed by Breitbart in service of his right-wing agenda, appears to be factually questionable. Weiner had more than 40,000 Twitter followers at the time the alleged tweet was sent, but only one of those ... (read more)

2011/06/01

Calling the Itamar Attacker a 'Terrorist'

I'm getting some pushback on the Drudge Retort to how I presented the Itamar attack story: Intruder Kills Israeli Settler Family In the West Bank settlement of Itamar, five members of an Israeli family were killed Friday night by an intruder who broke into their home and stabbed them to death. The suspect stabbed the mother, father and children aged 11, three and three months old. Two children, aged 2 and 4, were not harmed in the attack. The attacker has not been caught. The media is calling ... (read more)

2011/03/14

The Best Way to Deal with Rev. Fred Phelps

During sports broadcasts in the U.S., there are moments where the cameras abruptly stop showing the game, turning instead to show the crowd or the announcing booth. A telltale roar reveals the reason: an idiot has run onto the field and interrupted play. The drama of a field crasher would make excellent television. Most of the time, it's just a drunk, an attention-seeker or a drunken attention seeker, but sometimes things take a more newsworthy turn. A teen was tasered by cops at a Philadelphia ... (read more)

2011/01/11

Consultants Sue Huffington Post for Stealing Idea

Democratic political consultants Peter Daou and James Boyce have sued the Huffington Post, claiming that Arianna Huffington and other founders took their idea for the site and never compensated or credited them. Daou and Boyce had a lot of planning meetings with Huffington before the 2005 launch of the site, which was originally intended to be a liberal counterpoint to the Drudge Report. They sent Huffington a proposal for a site called fourteensixty.com that pitched features that were later ... (read more)

2011/01/06

Democracy: The Least Bad Option

A ... (read more)

2010/11/10

Mayhill Fowler Breaks Free of Huffington Post

When I visited the Newseum in Washington last year, I had a pang of journalistic envy over a display honoring Mayhill Fowler, the blogger who broke the "clinging to guns and religion" story about Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. Fowler was one of the Huffington Post's legion of unpaid citizen journalists, covering the race like a swarm of locusts. Fowler burned her bridges at Huffington this week, writing a public resignation letter after she couldn't convince the site's ... (read more)

2010/09/28

Gingrich, D'Souza: Obama Has 'Kenyan' Behavior

Although I try to stay out of political discussions on Facebook to avoid harshing anyone's mellow, I couldn't help myself when it came to Newt Gingrich's recent statement that President Obama exhibits "Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior": Citing a recent Forbes article by Dinesh D'Souza, former House speaker Newt Gingrich tells National Review Online that President Obama may follow a "Kenyan, anti-colonial" worldview. Gingrich says that D'Souza has made a "stunning insight" into Obama's ... (read more)

2010/09/13

Visiting 30 Mosques in 30 Days

Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq are spending Ramadan on a 12,000-mile road trip, visiting mosques across America and writing about their experiences on 30 Mosques in 30 Days. They were interviewed by NPR at the start of the trip: ... a lot of Muslims that live in small communities across the country, whether it be the Midwest, down South or even on the West Coast, they might feel, "I'm the only one going through this struggle. I'm the only kid in school that has a funny name. Or I wear a ... (read more)

2010/08/25

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