Thanks to a badly timed 'settlement' announcement during Vice President Joe Biden's recent trip, followed by a strongly worded admonition from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Israel is firmly back in the headlines (alongside, the 'demon pass'). (more...)

Governor Paterson's favorite person in New York these days is probably Hiram Monserrate, the former New York State Senator whose political path has gone from switching parties to an assault conviction to expulsion from the Senate to campaigning for his old seat. Monserrate is a walking distraction, at least until Election Day tomorrow. (more...)

video Secretary Of State Clinton Hillary Clinton is not happy with Israel. Earlier this week, during Vice President Joe Biden's trip there, Israel made a surprise, seriously ill-timed announcement of a 1,600 home development project to be built in a disputed part of East Jerusalem. The U.S. was not pleased (to put it mildly) and Clinton apparently said as much in a phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier today, and later elaborated in an interview with CNN. (more...)

video Despite the barbed words exchanged between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during the 2008 campaign, two years after the fact the Secretary of State has nothing but love for the president's wife, Michelle. The duo joined forces onstage to celebrate International Women's Day, and when Mrs. Obama made a slight gaffe in her compatriot's title, they both parlayed what could have been an awkward situation into a funny one. (more...)

video After yesterday's intimate pre-recorded interview with Matt Lauer on Today, Karl Rove stopped by the studio to talk to the host live about three of the most controversial issues of the Bush administration: the invasion of Iraq, the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, and the Valerie Plame CIA leak scandal. Unlike yesterday, this Rove showed no signs of remorse or vulnerability, and stuck to his points against an increasingly combative Lauer. (more...)

It's a dream come true, albeit a little late, for Washington's (and Wall Street's) worst behaved: a blog dedicated to serving legal advice for managing corporate, political, or public relations crises. Talking Points Memo has the story on attorney and Clintonite fixture Lanny Davis's new project, Legal Crisis Strategies, whose motto, "where litigation, media, and lobbying intersect," could very well apply to its owner, a veteran of all three disciplines. (more...)

Suffice to say that on her current trip around the Persian Gulf Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not having tea with President Ahmadinejad (this picture speaks a thousand four-letter words). However she did make time to sit down with Al Jazeera the Arabic-language news network that, over the years, has had hot and cold relationship (to put it mildly) with the U.S. No word on whether tea was served but the fact the U.S. secretary of state sat down with the mid-East media giant certainly demonstrates a level of official recognition (and respect) that was unimaginable eight years ago. From the Times piece on the meeting: (more...)

updated At the rate Gawker is going Kirsten Gillibrand may end up owing them her (future) political career. Gawker's resident reporter John Cook has been doing some relentless digging into Harold Ford -- the good-looking former congressman from Tennessee (1997-2007) who is strongly rumored to be considering a run for New York Senate -- and the results are not great. It's all about taxes baby. (more...)

Andrew Sullivan devoted some space today to explaining why he is so (sometimes disturbingly) relentless in his criticism of Sarah Palin and yet, in hindsight, dropped the ball where John Edwards was concerned (no pun intended). Says Sullivan: (more...)

At today's National Prayer Breakfast, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama spoke out against draconian anti-gay legislation being proposed in Uganda. The President's appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast has been the subject of controversy, given the ties between "The Family," the event's organizer, and the proponents of that Uganda law.

Although "The Family" in the US says it opposes the law and is working to defeat it, it was a "Family" member in Uganda who proposed the law. On Monday, Rachel Maddow spoke out against the President's appearance: (more...)

photos! Perhaps an entire magazine devoted to Sarah Palin is not exactly the sort of thing you'd expect to find at the checkout of your local West Village grocery store, but that's apparently where a regular reader picked up this copy of Sarah Palin; The Untold Story (...in her own words!) for a scant $8.99. Alas for the magazine world this just appears to be a one-off! Why alas? Regardless of how you feel about her politics (or maybe because of them) this is a woman who can sell magazines. Something publisher Steve LeGrice (former founding editor of In Touch and current head of Imagine That Publishing, which co-published this special issue) clearly is counting on, despite the fact the magazine "was produced, according to its publisher, without her knowledge or participation." (more...)

Well, tis’ the season, evidently, to heap vast amounts of shameful detail on sleazy politicians who, so far as we knew, were long ago buried alive in vast amounts of shameful detail.  Not a week after Andrew Young, the malleable former aide to John Edwards, released The Politician, his account of the sordid exertions Edwards involved him in in the course of concealing his affair with a campaign videographer, Rielle Hunter, the New York Daily News has reported that Staying True, a memoir by Jenny Sanford, the soon-to-be ex-wife of the disgraced satyr-governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, will come out this Friday. (more...)

After Keith Olbermann's post-SOTU j'accuse of a bevy of conservative talking heads, in which he equated their cries of "arrogance" with the racially inflammatory "uppity," many thought Keith was overreaching at best.

Be that as it may, both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report covered a case of the pot calling the kettle "arrogant," as they reported on the unprecedented bit of reverse-place-putting that was the Republicans' Mini-me SOTU. It's not that Obama is "uppity," it's that the Republicans have been too "downity." (more...)

slideshow Game Change authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann joined Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough in discussing their best-selling and oft blogged about book. Halperin mentioned during the event that the authors are in discussions with HBO about making a film version of their best-selling book. Their dreamcast? Meryl Streep playing Hillary Clinton and Will Smith playing Barack Obama. (more...)

By now you’ve heard: Scott Brown, the Lt. Colonel of the Army National Guard, has just been elected to the United States Senate. Oh, also, he posed nude in Cosmo in 1982. And now that this campaign is over, I have to wonder – where was the outrage? (more...)

Game Change, the dishy, exhaustively researched, and occasionally overwritten new book on the 2008 election by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, has dominated both political gossip and book publicity for the past week. It’s produced a small political scandal, a New York magazine cover story, and innumerable blog chatter. The book has been number one on Amazon since the day before its release, and the print run has reportedly already been increased twice. Nevertheless, the book is difficult to acquire in some parts of the country. For example, in lower Manhattan, the first four bookstores I checked had all sold out all their copies. The Strand had placed twenty-nine back orders for it, while the Union Square Barnes and Noble—where the woman in front of me was also asking for it—had placed about one hundred. With this in mind, we at Mediaite want to give you everything you’ll need to keep up with the chatter on Game Change, without your needing to read it. (more...)

They must have been working double-time in the Time offices this week. In the 36 hours or so since Haiti was devastated by Tuesday's earthquake the magazine has managed to turn around a cover story on the disaster along with a piece by former President Bill Clinton, who during times of natural disasters seems to set the standard for how Presidents can be useful once they leave office. Clinton, by the way, was appointed UN special envoy to Haiti in May of last year. (more...)

Now that the dust has settled over the initial and headline-making revelations of the new campaign book Game Change, a number of people are beginning to question how authors John Heilemann and Mark Halperin managed to get all the juicy quotes they included in the book. Halperin described the process to Time managing editor Rick Stengel: (more...)

Who says no one is reading books anymore! Washington is still reeling today from revelations made in the uber-gossipy yet-to-be-released Game Change penned by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. A copy of the book, which was technically under embargo until today, was discovered by the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder in a D.C. bookstore who shortly thereafter began posting the "juiciest bits" which shortly thereafter made international headlines. Not to be outdone the NYT apparently shortly thereafter got their hands on a copy and whipped up an embargo breaking review that called it "a spicy smorgasbord of observations, revelations and allegations — some that are based on impressive legwork and access, some that simply crystallize rumors and whispers from the campaign trail." It's true! Thus far the headlines sound like D.C.'s version of the behind the high school gymnasium gossip mill. And who could resist that. (more...)

Game Change, the book out today by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, is  making waves in NY and DC with its sensational revelations about the 2008 presidential campaign. One of those excerpts, posted by The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder, struck me as just a bit hypocritical. It concerns Cindy McCain and a previously discredited rumor, resurrected in Halperin's book.

Here's the passage, as posted by Marc Ambinder:

McCain aides confront Cindy McCain over reports that she had an extramarital affair (page 281):

"The man was said to be her long-term boyfriend; the pair had been sighted all over town in the last few years. Members of McCain's senior staff discussed the unsettling news, and their growing concerns that Cindy's behavior had been increasingly erratic of late. Weaver and others suspected that the Cindy rumor was rooted in truth. It was upsetting, Weaver believed, but not a threat."

This is exactly the kind of thing that a vociferous media critic pointed out, in the wake of the 2008 election, as an example of "extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage," and a "disgusting failure" by the media. In fact, the exact thing:

"The (New York Times) story about Cindy McCain was vicious. It looked for every negative thing they could find about her and it cast her in an extraordinarily negative light. It didn't talk about her work, for instance, as a mother for her children, and they cherry-picked every negative thing that's ever been written about her."

That defender of Cindy McCain's virtue was...Mark Halperin.

I haven't read the book yet, but unless Ambinder left out the part where Halperin has ironclad sourcing and actual facts, Game Change seems to do little more than repeat a rumor, and add to it a rumor that a McCain adviser believed the rumor.

Also interesting, given Halperin's November 2008 j'accuse to the rest of the media (while he was already writing the book with Heilemann), is the fact that Marc Ambinder has released excerpts that devastate McCain, Harry Reid, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Sarah Palin, but describes the parts of the book about Obama thusly:

About Obama himself the book includes plenty of observations about his manner and temperament, many astute and some original, though no earth-shattering revelations.

Physician, get thyself out of the tank.

DEVELOPING Late last night, the White House announced that there would be no pool coverage for Sunday, January 10. While the President had no scheduled events this weekend, there was pool coverage yesterday. (more...)

video Past is prologue? Just in time for the 2010 mid-term election bonanza comes the much-anticipated Game Change, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. So anticipated in fact that what is billed as a "sweeping, novelistic portrait of this historic and unusual race" is under embargo until Monday. Ahead of the release the two are being interviewed on 60 Minutes this Sunday along with John McCain's former top campaign strategist Steve Schmidt. Additionally, Drudge has devoted a entire box to it, including what yesterday looked like an excerpt, but which appears to have since been removed. (more...)

Wow. Twitter is all lit up this morning over Peter Baker's upcoming NYT Magazine article 'Inside Obama's War on Terrorism.' And for good reason: it is a bit of a game changer in a couple of respects. Mediawise, it's interesting to note that the piece has gone live online almost two weeks before readers will see the print version. That's right. The story was apparently penned for the January 12 edition of the Magazine but was crashed over the holiday and rushed online this morning. Once you read it it's easy to understand why. This is the sort of piece that will likely have a measurable affect on Obama's image as a president able to deal with the terrorism issues of the day. Having it go live on his first day back in Washington is a huge coup for everyone involved. (more...)

At the end of every year, Gallup asks Americans which men and women they most admire. Today, they released their results, a number of which are surprising. Gallup, and many news organizations, give top billing to the fact that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton narrowly beat Sarah Palin as the Most Admired Woman.

President Barack Obama easily won the Most Admired Man title, with 30% of mentions. But there's a new and noteworthy addition to the list. You guessed it: Glenn Beck, who came in fourth place. (more...)

The newest book about 2008's soon-to-be-legendary presidential campaign hits shelves today. WaPo reporter Anne Kornblut's Notes from the Cracked Ceiling: Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and What It Will Take for a Woman to Win hits bookshelves today and some early excerpts (courtesy of Mike Allen) not only looks like the makings for a good read but suggest that the battle of the political sexes -- so prevalent during much of the campaign -- may be about to return as a major talking point. And well it should. (more...)

Here's an interesting tidbit buried part way through Newsweek's interview with Hillary Clinton and Henry Kissinger. As part of their interview-themed issue, out this week, Newsweek features the two comparing notes over what it's like to be Secretary of State. Short version: very tiring. However in the process of describing how one of the requirements of her job is to keep an eye on future problems, which lead to a description of this scenario, perhaps call it Climategate, The War Games? (more...)

video Time takes its 'Person of the Year' very seriously, as evidenced by this year's pick: United States Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who I suspect is really just a fill in for the U.S. economy, which yes is absolutely the overriding issue of the year. (more...)

The Aughts With the end of the year, the end of the decade, and the end of President Obama's first year in office all fast approaching there is likely to be a bit of a battle of the listicle coming our way (the first wave of which has already arrived). (more...)

“So this Dec. 12, I mark a sad anniversary, and wonder, among so many other things, what “Catch-22’s” author would have had to say about President Obama’s accepting the Nobel Peace Prize shortly after ordering 30,000 more Americans to war.”

Mediaite in the News Remember a few weeks back when Ann Coulter was on Julie Menin's show talking about Maxine Waters and racking up the pageviews on HuffPo and this site in her usual, controversial way? Well, that probably won't happen with Menin's latest interview, which was with me. Still, I enjoyed it, mostly because Menin is a smart, prepared interviewer who hits a lot of different points well and with an eye to conversation and dialogue, not soundbites. (more...)

The Aughts

As the face of media evolves, it's important to honor the figures who helped define, shape and set the standards in their industries. These are some of the most prominent members of the media who passed away over the past 10 years.  Take a look back with some snippets from their respective New York Times obituaries.

This is interesting. In a column mostly devoted to detailing the similarities she shares with Sarah Palin (tongue firmly planted in cheek), Maureen Dowd appears to side with Palin on the events surrounding her problems with McCain campaign adviser Nicolle Wallace and the disastrous Katie Couric interviews: (more...)

You may recognize Leslie Sanchez from CNN, since she was one of their A-team pundits during last-years long, crazy march to election day. Like the rest of us, she saw how the campaign of Hillary Clinton unfolded, how Michelle Obama was perceived and characterized, and the wrench thrown into the works late last August that was Sarah Palin — and, like with the rest of us, tried to wrap her head around it all. It was a lot — especially when that "rest of us" was women, trying to puzzle out our feelings on Palin and how she turned around notions of power, motherhood, political-sexiness, media engagement, and — yes — fitness for office. As a woman and a Republican (and a Hispanic, and a CEO — check those boxes!) Sanchez found herself intrigued by how the 2008 drama had played out for these particular women, and what that said about women in this country overall, right now, going forward. The result was her new book, You've Come a Long Way, Maybe: Sarah, Michelle, Hillary and the Shaping of the New American Woman. As well, Leslie was also the director of the White House Initiative on Hispanic Education from 2001 to 2003 and is CEO of the Impacto Group, which specializes in market research about women and Hispanics; she is also a friend of mine, and — spoiler alert! — I am quoted in the book (and on the back flap, along with Newt Gingrich. I have arrived!). She has shared an excerpt with us today, and also — in honor of Sarah Palin's return to the headlines! — has agreed to burn a bra or two with us for today's installment of 5QQ - Five Quick Questions. (more...)

Double X, the women-oriented website launched by Slate will be folded back into the larger site come the new year. From the New York Times Media Decoder post: (more...)

Video Oh to be a fly on the wall for this meeting of the minds. Back in August of 2008 when John McCain announced his vice presidential pick -- a pick that was aimed at winning over the block of women who'd been energized by Hillary Clinton's long campaign -- there was some uproar over the irony that after years (and years) of hard work and press abuse Clinton should have the White House snatched away from her from an unknown governor from Alaska. (more...)

The adventures of Euna Lee and Laura Ling, the two CurrentTV journalists jailed in North Korea earlier this year only to be rescued in somewhat dramatic fashion by former President Bill Clinton already seems like another lifetime thanks to the current state of the news cycle. However, according to Publisher's Marketplace readers will get an inside look into the experiences of the two women courtesy of Lee who has just signed a six-figure book deal with Broadway Books (an imprint of Random House). From the announcement: (more...)

video Pres. Barack Obama delivered his remarks on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall today in a video message during the ceremonies in Germany (there was a little controversy about him not appearing in person). In his place - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke first. And which cable news network was the only one to carry both live? Fox News. (more...)

Who: David Plouffe What: Book event for “The Audacity to Win” Where: Barnes and Noble Union Square When: November 3, 2009 Thumbs: Up (more...)

Better than the Rockettes! On February 25th, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will appear at Radio City Music Hall in what the New York Post is calling "a presidential debate for the ages." UPDATE: It's off. But by all means read my sardonic reaction below. (more...)

A year ago tomorrow the nation went to polls and elected Barack Hussein Obama the 44th President of the United States. It was a joyful occasion, celebrated the world over, and variously compared to New Years Eve, the Yankees winning the World Series, the opposite of 9/11, and the proper beginning of the 21st Century. The national political mood of Election Day 2009 would likely not be recognizable to the Obama-happy nation of 12 months ago. What a difference, etc. And yet, it's hard to believe it's only been 12 months! And a mere nine-and-a-half months of actual presidency. And truly it is only a slight exaggeration to say that in the interim it's been all Obama, all the time. With that in mind let's take a look back at the Barack Obama highlights (and some lowlights) of the last year. (more...)