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Is Rove Going Down? Do the Mainstream Media Even Care?
(July 07, 2005)
How is it that the second most powerful man in America is about to take a fall and the mainstream media are largely taking a pass? Could it be that the fear of Karl Rove and this White House is so great that not even the biggest of the media big boys are willing to take them on? Does the answer to that one go without saying?
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Bush and Rummy's Tired Acts
(June 29, 2005)
If you could distill this administration down to one a single thing it would be this: a complete inability — indeed a pathological aversion — to changing course, even when the current course is taking us over the cliff.
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Just Say Noruba
(June 22, 2005)
I was thinking a lot over the weekend about the news and about how the news becomes the news, and then I read Jay Rosen's brilliant take on the Downing Street Memo coverage [to read Jay Rosen's whole piece go to huffingtonpost.com]. Rosen elaborates on Josh Marshall's assertion that "news stories have a 24-hour audition on the news stage, and if they don't catch fire in that 24 hours, there's no second chance." Rosen's theory is that blogs have become the news cycle's appeals court, and that the Downing Street Memo story is still alive because it won on appeal. And thank God. [ read more ]
Iraq: Not Your Father's Anti-War Movement
(June 15, 2005)
There is no guaranteed immunity for them. Rally round the president when the nation is at war is the American tradition — but only for a time. The Korean War forced Truman to pull out of the 1952 race. Vietnam forced Johnson to pull out in 1968. [ read more ]
The Russert Watch: Ken Mehlman Gets The E-ZPass Treatment
(June 06, 2005)
Sunday's "Meet the Press," featuring RNC chair Ken Mehlman, was another classic example of why host Tim Russert is fast becoming journalism's answer to the "E-ZPass," those electronic tags that allow drivers to go through toll booths without having to stop. On the show today, Mehlman was allowed to distort, twist, manipulate, obfuscate and "disassemble" his way through every stop on the disinformation highway.
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Why Isn’t Iraq Topic One Among Democrats?
(June 02, 2005)
Speech by Arianna Huffington given at the 2005 Take Back America Conference
It's great to be here with Howard Dean at the Take Back America Conference. What a difference a year makes. Last year we were all gathered together with one goal and one goal only: get Bush out of office. Everyone put aside all differences, bit their tongues until sometimes they bled, and basically said to themselves and to each other: let's beat Bush, then we'll worry about pushing a progressive agenda. In a single-minded effort to take back the White House, we neglected to take back America. [ read more ]
Next Dem Battlefront: Iraq
(May 25, 2005)
Now that the Democrats have won the battle over the nuclear option (or, atleast, come away with a tie), they need to turn their attention to what it's going to take to become more than a minority party that wins a battle every
now and then. They have been surprisingly successful at battling Bush's domestic agenda, but if they're going to broaden their appeal they firsthave to broaden their battlefronts to include Iraq.
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Huffington Post story in New York Times
(April 28, 2005)
I’m writing to let you know that I will not be posting a column this week as I’m taking a couple of weeks off to concentrate exclusively on the final stages of the May 9th launch of the Huffington Post. The Post is a new Internet publishing venture that will combine a breaking news section with an innovative group blog where some of the country’s most creative minds will weigh in on topics great and small, political and cultural, important or just plain entertaining.
For a little more about it, here is a story from the New York Times. And don’t forget to log on to www.HuffingtonPost.com on May 9th. [ read more ]
Nailing the Hammer?
(April 20, 2005)
The Hammer was in a steely mood this weekend. Moments before brandishing a rifle over his head, embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay told a crowd of gun lovers at the National Rifle Association's annual convention, "When a man is in trouble or in a good fight, you want to have your friends around--preferably armed." [ read more ]
A Cornucopia of Death
(April 12, 2005)
Paint the last month black. It’s been an orgy of mourning; a cornucopia of death. We’ve had Terri Schiavo, Pope John Paul, Prince Rainier, and Charles and Camilla’s wedding — which felt as grim as any funeral. All brought to us in no-longer-living color. If nothing else, the media have outed themselves as the ultimate necrophiliacs. I expect CNN and Forest Lawn to announce a sponsorship agreement any day now. [ read more ]
Bushes In The Hood: W Fights Gangs With Budget Cuts And Photo Ops
(April 06, 2005)
Over the next week or so, House and Senate negotiators will try to hammer out the differences in their competing budgets. Among the major bones of contention: disagreements over how deeply to cut Medicaid; whether to make President Bush's expiring first-term tax cuts permanent; and whether to go along with the president's proposal to slash funding for a wide range of programs related to homeland security. [ read more ]
Schiavo Case Proves Dems Are Starving For Leadership
(March 29, 2005)
This column is not about Terri Schiavo and the wrenching spectacle that has surrounded her tragic fate. May she rest in peace. [ read more ]
Paying The Price For Bush’s Retro Energy Policy
(March 23, 2005)
The new sales pitch for President Bush is that he’s a forward-thinking visionary, right? His policies in the Middle East were, it turns out, not about the bloody debacle in Iraq today but about democracy spreading throughout the region in a glorious future. And his plan to fix Social Security is not at all about privatizing the jewel of the New Deal but simply about ensuring a safe and secure system well past 2052. [ read more ]
The Washington Establishment Fails Logic 101
(March 16, 2005)
I just got back from a trip to the Happiest Place on Earth. Didn’t ride the Teacups, though. Because I wasn’t in Disneyland but in Washington, D.C., where everyone is walking on air, swept away by the Beltway’s latest consensus: President Bush was right on Iraq, and, as a result, Tomorrowland in the Middle East will feature an E-ticket ride on the Matterhorn of freedom and democracy. [ read more ]
The Senate Opens Fire on U.S. Consumers
(March 09, 2005)
U.S. senators are about to pass a bankruptcy bill so hostile to ordinary American families that it could only have come about in a place as corrupt, cynical and unmoored from reality as Washington, D.C. [ read more ]
A Tale of Two Leadership Styles
(March 02, 2005)
After seeing the young Bruce Springsteen in concert, rock critic Jon Landau famously wrote: "I have seen the future of rock and roll, and its name is Bruce Springsteen." [ read more ]
Rummy TV
(February 23, 2005)
The Bush administration has shown a willingness to do just about anything to manipulate public opinion. It paid pundits to say nice things about it. It spent lavishly to create bogus--and, according to the comptroller general, illegal--video news reports on the president's Medicare, education and drug policies. And it has given us Gannon/Guckert-gate. [ read more ]
Arnold And Eisner: Pathological Peas In A Pod
(February 16, 2005)
Like most everyone in and around Hollywood, I spent part of this past weekend devouring "DisneyWar," James Stewart's 572-page vivisection of Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Throughout the chilling read, I couldn't shake the feeling that Eisner reminded me of someone.
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Rebuilding Iraq: The Buck Stops Where?
(February 09, 2005)
With the president preparing to hit up Congress for another $80 billion for the war in Iraq, I thought it might be a good time to crack open a history book.
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Post-Election Buzzkill: Why Iraq Is Still A Debacle
(February 02, 2005)
Quick, before the conventional wisdom hardens, it needs to be said: The Iraqi elections were not the second coming of the Constitutional Convention. [ read more ]
Political Oscars 2005
(January 26, 2005)
With this year's Oscar nominations just out and already sparking heated debate (Was Hollywood too chastened to nominate Michael Moore? Too Jewish to embrace Mel's "Passion"? And what happened to Paul Giamatti?), I thought it would be a good time for this column's traditional salute to outstanding achievements in the worlds of politics and entertainment — which have, after all, become increasingly hard to tell apart. [ read more ]
More Money For Iraq? Not Without Conditions
(January 19, 2005)
When pressed by The Washington Post last week about why no one in his administration has been held accountable for the myriad failures in Iraq, President Bush sounded uncannily like Will Forte's petulant caricature on "Saturday Night Live": "Well, we had an accountability moment — and that's called the 2004 election." [ read more ]
America’s Finite Future?
(January 11, 2005)
Near the beginning of "Saturday Night Fever," John Travolta's Tony Manero, frustrated that his boss thinks he should save his salary instead of spending it on a new disco shirt, cries out, "Fuck the future!" To which his boss replies: "No, Tony, you can't fuck the future. The future fucks you! It catches up with you and it fucks you if you ain't prepared for it!" [ read more ]
2004: Things To Forget (Part Two)
(January 04, 2005)
In my last column, I offered a list of all the things I wanted to forget from 2004. Unfortunately, it turns out there was just too much gunk clogging up my internal hard drive to get rid of it all with a single cleansing. So, as we cross the threshold of the New Year, here is another attempt to delete all of last year's political and cultural spam. [ read more ]
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