tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35509151042892719282024-09-27T15:25:48.062-05:00A wayward journalist and recovering political addict, I write a weekly column for the Opelika-Auburn News (www.oanow.com). This blog is that column's hipper, more active companion -- kind of like that friend you had in high school that you knew, but never publicly admitted, was just a tad bit cooler than you.Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comBlogger406125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-3181384981145863832008-05-01T01:25:00.004-05:002008-05-01T01:50:22.289-05:00

Hey guys,You read here earlier this week about the big announcement: The Opelika-Auburn News has picked up my blog and will now host it on its web site, www.oanow.com!I'll celebrate the move by liveblogging Gov. Bob Riley's appearance at the sold-out Lee County GOP dinner tonight in Opelika. Riley's been mentioned as a potential running mate for Republican presidential nominee-to-be John McCain.

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-68892634957371827882008-04-30T22:11:00.003-05:002008-05-01T00:11:58.349-05:00

Hillary Clinton made her first appearance -- ever -- on the O'Reilly Factor tonight.Clinton faced off with the show's self-assured, self-described "humble correspondent" namesake, Bill O'Reilly, this morning in Indiana. The interview was split into two parts, the first of which was presented tonight.Hillary Clinton? Bill O'Reilly? Cage match fight to the death? How ugly would it get?Once she

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-11520216727203608242008-04-30T14:57:00.004-05:002008-04-30T15:32:54.616-05:00

As the aftershocks of Barack Obama's seismic denunciation of Jeremiah Wright continue to rattle the political landscape, new poll numbers show Hillary Clinton gaining on Obama in the Tarheel State.Although a Rasmussen survey puts Obama's current lead as high as 14 percent, a SurveyUSA poll places it in single digits -- and just outside the margin or error -- at 5 percent. But, much like the

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-83385599591787991652008-04-29T17:39:00.003-05:002008-04-29T18:42:10.368-05:00

Barack Obama weighed in on the Jeremiah Wright Traveling Media Carnival this afternoon, calling remarks his former pastor made at the National Press Club yesterday "divisive," "destructive" and "appalling."I’m particularly distressed that this has caused such a distraction from what this campaign should be about, which is the American people. Their situation is getting worse. And this campaign

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-58555717691782905212008-04-29T17:04:00.003-05:002008-04-29T17:31:37.168-05:00

First, Jerry Springer considered it. Then, Al Franken did it. Could Chris Matthews be next?Speculation is intensifying that Matthews may make himself a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, according to this storyfrom the New York Sun.Matthews is offering tepid denials of his intentions to run on one hand while using his MSNBC show, Hardball, to host influential elected officials and

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-52281831371852335442008-04-29T08:47:00.002-05:002008-04-29T10:00:58.251-05:00

Karl Rove must be bored.Rove, the mastermind of victories that put George W. Bush in the White House and kept him there, is regarded among Democrats as the very personification of evil. They blame him for everything from the Iraq war to gas prices and accuse him of exploiting his position of power to engineer persecution of fellow Democrats (see Don Siegelman).In a column for Newsweek magazine,

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-26973681152347462372008-04-28T11:16:00.002-05:002008-04-28T11:32:22.203-05:00

It seems that there may be a light, however faint, at the end of the tunnel for those of us who abhor the current system of financing political campaigns in the United States.On Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Barack Obama -- who is "on pace to raise more than $300 million in the primaries" -- expressed an interest in remaining in the public finance system for the general election against GOP

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-19221580539210270232008-04-28T11:05:00.003-05:002008-04-28T11:10:35.926-05:00

Hey everyone,Check out the new poll question on the left. I want to know what you think about Jeremiah Wright's media tour.Comments welcome!

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-70444808704761444562008-04-28T10:32:00.000-05:002008-04-28T10:55:14.613-05:00

What's going on with Jeremiah Wright?Wright spent weeks in near-isolation, canceling many appearances in guest pulpits across the country as those omnipresent clips of his sermons played out, nearly 24/7, on cable news and the web.Now, over the past week, he has gone from near invisible to being ubiquitous. He's everywhere.He emerged with an interview with PBS's Bill Moyers on Thursday; Sunday

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-58102365753711165122008-04-28T08:45:00.000-05:002008-04-28T10:56:37.561-05:00

You've no doubt heard the terrible, henious story about the 73-year-old Austrian man who has reportedly confessed to kidnappping his own daughter, stashing her away in a windowless cellar and repeatedly raping her for 24 years -- and fathering seven children by her.We now have this guy's mug shot ... am I the only one, or does he remind anyone else of another creepy fella:Josef F. of Austria,

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-24412505401966224732008-04-26T01:37:00.004-05:002008-04-27T01:29:23.495-05:00

I have waited all week to share some terrific and exciting news with you!It's been said that necessity is the mother of invention. If that's ever been true, it's true of this blog. For months, I struggled to cram all kinds of good political news into my weekly column, which appears in print on Saturdays in the Opelika-Auburn News. The result was often frustrating: either for me, when I felt that

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-47030665320649282232008-04-26T01:10:00.002-05:002008-04-26T01:25:17.251-05:00

It's incredible.Just hours after I wrote the earlier post about the reunification of an 18-year-old girl who had been abandoned at birth and the man who found her and saved her life, a retired police officer and his son stumbled upon a newborn baby boy abandoned in a patch of weeds in Palmetto, Fla., just miles from my hometown:"It was very pink, like a dark pink, almost a red. Like when you go

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-79439526830673275112008-04-25T16:11:00.002-05:002008-04-25T16:31:09.499-05:00

Q. What do FM radio, McDonald's, Indonesia and plutonium have in common?A. They're all younger than McCain.John S. McCain, the GOP presidential nominee-to-be, was born on Aug. 29, 1936. At 71, he's ... "kinda old," according to this YouTube video.Some of the other things that are, according to the video, YoungerThanMcCain:The Golden Gate Bridge;The Lincoln Tunnel;Burger King;Coke in a can;

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-50852363990354675252008-04-25T08:11:00.003-05:002008-04-25T08:45:08.718-05:00

If you watch the news at all, you know that every segment brings the chance that you'll hear something horrible: Children murdered. Women raped. Babies abused. We've all heard a story or two about a baby who's been abandoned. Nearly every state has a form of the so-called "Safe Haven" law, allowing birth parents to drop off their newborns in designated locations like fire stations and hospitals

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-37855212692596822532008-04-24T22:34:00.000-05:002008-04-24T22:35:49.794-05:00

(Just bumping this post from Tuesday night ...)I want to issue a global challenge to everyone out there in the blogosphere:I have been looking for an e-mail address for Gloria Borger for at least two months. I've used all my powers, and I haven't been able to find one.Anyone out there who can turn up an e-mail address for Gloria for me, I'll publicly recognize your super sleuthing skills here on

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-75075765362165130262008-04-24T21:53:00.003-05:002008-04-24T22:01:28.074-05:00

Leave it to Barack Obama to put the long, L-O-N-G campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in perspective."I've been running for president for about 15 months now, which means that there are babies who are now walking and talking who were born since I announced for president," he said Wednesday during a campaign stop in New Albany, Ind. "This has been a long primary season." It will be

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-62774294543135390022008-04-24T13:53:00.005-05:002008-04-24T14:57:09.876-05:00

It was brutally obvious the moment it happened.Last night on Larry King Live, the host of the long-running talk show had just finished a wild first half with James Carville, Bill Richardson and other assorted surrogates of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. He was limping through a painfully boring interview with First Lady Laura Bush and Jenna Bush when he asked Laura Bush whether she is keeping

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-75657560784467534862008-04-23T23:42:00.002-05:002008-04-24T00:16:58.019-05:00

It's late night -- time for true confessions here on the Clarion Caller Blog.Anytime a pundit has attained the ability to be known only by first name, you know he's got it going on. Such is the case with James Carville -- who is simply known as The James. He is to politics what Oprah or Ellen is to TV talk. If there are two kinds of people in the world -- lovers and fighters -- James Carville is

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-15406882520221022662008-04-23T23:07:00.002-05:002008-04-23T23:10:39.885-05:00

I'm watching the rerun of Larry King Live now ... James Carville's actual quote about the New York Times was this:"The New York Times, God bless 'em, they're good, well-meaning people over there, but they don't know anything about politics."I love James Carville.

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-46251871971893214172008-04-23T21:17:00.004-05:002008-04-24T00:32:00.251-05:00

There's been a lot of talk today about this morning's New York Times editorial, "The Low Road to Victory," that took Hillary Clinton's campaign to task for its methods in Pennsylvania:The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-51294362748622074512008-04-23T17:12:00.002-05:002008-04-23T17:29:30.339-05:00

Last night I had to choose between American Idol and Pennsylvania primary results. As a result, I missed Brooke White restarting her song. I hate when that happens!Tonight, I have to choose between the AI results show and Larry King Live. I'm not usually a devoted LKL viewer, but tonight's show pits James Carville against Bill Richardson. Fireworks are bound to fly, thanks to Carville comparing

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-10595765549174768072008-04-23T11:47:00.004-05:002008-04-23T12:10:30.410-05:00

Kelly Reynolds has two days to live.Doctors gave the Bradenton, Fla., resident just nine months when they diagnosed him with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig's disease. That was three and a half years ago. Reynolds just wasn't ready to go. He has stretched his time and lived it on his terms -- a pattern he will extend to his death. Reynolds has asked to be removed

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-53294226133182046132008-04-23T09:07:00.000-05:002008-04-23T09:08:05.183-05:00

It's the morning after, and Hillary Clinton has made her appearance on CNN to reiterate her position that she isn't going anywhere until the nomination is decided, and she can't see the nomination being decided until the issues of Michigan and Florida are resolved.CNN's Frank Sesno --SIDEBAR: Speaking of Frank, where has he been? I used to enjoy watching him, but he's been AWOL for a long time.

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-40540376792027455232008-04-22T21:45:00.004-05:002008-04-22T23:10:16.071-05:00

... And some thoughts on Obama's speech from Evansville, Ind.:Obama wasted no time getting out of Pennsylvania. By giving tonight's speech from Indiana, he gave the campaign a new dateline. Moving the center of the campaign's gravity away from the site of Hillary Clinton's victory has the effect of minimizing that victory. Obama made it clear that he may have taken a fall in Pennsylvania, but the

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550915104289271928.post-75807356005969859362008-04-22T21:12:00.004-05:002008-04-22T22:25:30.876-05:00

Some thoughts on Hillary Clinton's victory speech from Philadelphia:Clinton's line, "The tide is turning" was a clear signal to pundits and superdelegates (and fundraisers) alike: She's not going anywhere anytime soon.Inexplicably, Clinton used this opportunity to pledge that in her administration, America would "end the war on science" and renew its commitment to research. Federal funding for

Jennifer Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02654597744335358044noreply@blogger.com