Fact-Checking “FACT CHECK CLARK” Tapped has two pieces up, “FACT CHECK CLARK, PART I” and the aptly titled follow-up, “FACT CHECK CLARK, PART II“. Thanks to Tapped’s recently instituted policy of signing posts, I can see that both were penned by Garance Franke-Ruta. I was suspicious of these posts for two reasons: first, it was […]

A Suggestion for Wilson and Plame John Dean, of Watergate fame, has a piece in Salon.com comparing the Plame affair to Watergate. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he argues that this scandal is more serious than Watergate was in some crucial respects. He also gives a very intriguing piece of advice in the Salon article: Regardless of whether […]

An Unemployment Report that’s Not Too Bad Looking on the bright side, it’s good news for the US labor market that the unemployment rate was unchanged, at 6.1%, according to the data released today by the BLS. In fact, payrolls even grew by 57,000. This wasn’t enough to match the average of 100,000 or so […]

Plaming On… with the Devil’s Advocate As AB noted below, Digby’s point about the Plame affair being (partly, at least) about the media itself is a good one. Maybe the media will indeed keep the story going, simply because they get to talk about themselves. But I also think that in order to answer the […]

More People Reading Angry Bear That’s my favorite possible explanation for this story, from the front page of today’s New York Times: The public’s confidence in President Bush’s ability to deal wisely with an international crisis has slid sharply over the past five months, the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll has found. And a […]

Plame On! Recently, Kash expressed some concern that “this disgusting episode of political payback and security manipulation will quickly fade away with little long-term repercussions on the Bush presidency?” I haven’t disagreed with my esteemed co-blogger yet, and I’m not quite doing so now. But Digby raises an interesting point that I think has merit: […]

Corrections Department Earlier, I referred to Rush Limbaugh as a “Jackass”. That was a mistake; the correct term is “junkie“. I regret the error. AB

Shocking Hostility from the Arab World The report released yesterday that found that the Arab world hates the US was nothing short of… absolutely obvious. I would have been happy to tell the State Department months ago that “Hostility toward America has reached shocking levels,” and that “what is required is not merely tactical adaptation […]

The Plame Affair It looks like things are settling down regarding the Plame affair. The wheels have slowly begun grinding on an FBI investigation that will probably take months, Bush’s buddies are in charge of the investigation, the White House is effectively holding Congressional Republicans in line to stifle calls for an independent investigation, fallout […]

Are We Booming Yet? This week’s initial unemployment claims were up a bit to 399,000, suggesting that tomorrow’s unemployment report may not look too good. There have been a few other worrying signs about the economy lately: manufacturing activity may have begun slowing again a bit, and consumer confidence is falling, not rising. We’re supposed […]