video Lately Congress has started to feel a bit like a game of Ten Little Indians: who's next. Yesterday's announcement from Indiana senator Evan Bayh (D) that he would be retiring, amazingly caught just about everyone off guard (and we mean everyone). Bayh, who at 54 is relatively young, is widely considered the only Democrat able to win Indiana (though this time around was expected to be tougher than in years past) and despite not quite making the VP cut in either 2004 or 2008 had a fairly rosy political future by any measure. So what gives? (more...)

webcast We're back with Mediaite Office Hours today from our comfortable and spacious Livestream.com's studio at 3pmET. Joining us today will be ABC News' Rick Klein, Los Angeles Times' Matea Gold and more: (more...)

While the GOP lurches from here to there trying to settle on both an identity and a leader they can reasonably place their hopes (and cash) on for 2012 it looks like their most popular member may be toying with a whole other sort of going rogue: third party candidacy. (more...)

President Obama continues to make the off-the-record rounds with prominent member of the press. A little over two weeks ago he met with MSNBC anchors Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann among others. Friday's list, courtesy of Politico's Michael Calderone, included: CNN's David Gergen, Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, Newsweek's Jon Meacham and Howard Fineman, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker, POLITICO's Mike Allen, NPR/ Fox's Mara Liasson, Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall and a trio from the New York Times: David Brooks, Andy Rosenthal, and Gail Collins. (more...)

Where were you a year ago today? If you are a political journalist — or media hanger-on — chances are you were living out of a suitcase at the 2008 Presidential Conventions, with the Dems nominating Barack Obama in Denver and the GOP nominating John McCain in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Remember those heady days? (more...)

WaPo executive editor Marcus Brauchli has put an end to Mouthpiece Theater, the satirical web series of Post staffers Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza, Howard Kurtz reported this afternoon. The straw that broke the camel's back was a joke in the latest episode of Mouthpiece at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's expense "that went too far." Brauchli was under pressure from groups such as Women, Action and the Media, that took offense at Milbank's none-too-subtle allusion that, if Clinton had been at the Beer Summit, her beer of choice would have been "Mad Bitch" (video here). (more...)