p m carpenter's commentary

A Carneyval atmosphere

2013-05-22T08:16:50-05:00

Somewhere in the White House chain of command, control, and scandal management, there is a breakdown. Say whatever you like about Rahm Emanuel, recall him as unfondly as you want, but it's hard to imagine that under his chief of...

Housekkeeping III

2013-05-21T20:55:04-05:00

The latest in the Typepad saga ... Now some legitimate comments are being snared by the undiscriminating genius of the anti-spam verification filter. Bingo! Precisely the opposite of the earlier problem. Anyway, be assured that I haven't suddenly undertaken to...

The puzzle of gloom

2013-05-21T14:44:53-05:00

From the WaPo-ABC News poll: Majorities of Americans believe that the Internal Revenue Service deliberately harassed conservative groups by targeting them for special scrutiny and say that the Obama administration is trying to cover up important details about the terrorist...

Benghazi resurrects!

2013-05-21T13:02:24-05:00

This, from the frantic Roger L. Simon of the equally frantic PJ Media, is the reportorial stuff of sheer, stumblebum beauty: More whistleblowers will emerge shortly in the escalating Benghazi scandal, according to two former U.S. diplomats who spoke with...

Tom Coburn's Emersonian moment

2013-05-21T10:46:55-05:00

When pondering Tom Coburn, do the words "foolish consistency" and "hobgoblin" come to mind?

A weak obfuscation

2013-05-21T10:37:50-05:00

Three "former Justice Department officials who served in the three administrations preceding President Obama’s ... are worried that the criticism of the decision to subpoena telephone toll records of A.P. journalists in an important leak investigation sends the wrong message...

An EF5 discredit

2013-05-21T08:30:23-05:00

Here, from Wonkette, the left-wing version of Michelle Malkin, is why I tend to avoid visiting the "progressive" blogosphere: We have little of consequence to add beyond GENERAL FUCKING OUTRAGE!!!1! that we have BROKEN THE FUCKING WEATHER but Sarah Palin...

Seeing opportunities

2013-05-20T14:29:52-05:00

This anti-handwringing, anti-bed-wetting, anti-D.C. punditocracy piece from former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau is getting a lot of attention today. The president, writes Favreau, is handling these scandalous times with characteristic aplomb, and if that means Dana Milbank thinks he's too...

Coping with (others') pseudoconservative myopia

2013-05-20T13:11:12-05:00

Whether Nate Silver is trying to genuinely enlighten Peggy Noonan's naivete or just casually refute her partisan bullshit, I can't say. But it's a fun romp, extrapolating, as he does, that probably "about 380,000 of Mr. Romney’s voters were audited...

Hillary, softening the territory

2013-05-20T10:50:39-05:00

The mystery endures: Philippe Reines, one of those former Senate loyalists who followed her to the State Department and is now a paid spokesman for the former first lady, dismissed speculation about a 2016 run even as he pronounced that...

Yeah, but what's the margin of error?

2013-05-20T08:50:18-05:00

Dionne at his gloomiest: Ernst Hillebrand, the head of international policy analysis for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation ... describes a chilling finding in a 2009 survey...: "that zero percent--yes, zero percent--of workers in Germany believe they can have a significant...

Schiff hits the fan

2013-05-19T08:27:50-05:00

Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff isn't buying GOP protests of innocence regarding what was clearly a political manipulation of talking points about a grave matter of national security: A GOP leak of doctored e-mails [became] the basis of GOP talking points.......

BenghazIRS

2013-05-18T14:38:04-05:00

This story delves dangerously into facts, which have the unfortunate effect of "muddling" the ecstasy of skulduggery and scandal: Overseen by a revolving cast of midlevel managers, stalled by miscommunication with I.R.S. lawyers and executives in Washington and confused about...

Avian fecal matter as a political strategy

2013-05-18T09:12:08-05:00

The New York Times reports that "The president’s aides ... have ordered the White House staff not to be distracted by approaching hearings on Capitol Hill." This is not unlike Gen. Eisenhower ordering Allied troops not to be distracted by...

A propagandistic frenzier at her best

2013-05-17T15:05:52-05:00

Peggy Noonan has penned a grandmommy of propagandistic hysteria. It's a pleasure to read. She raves like an offended banshee and piles vitriolic rumor upon vitriolic scuttlebutt and longs for the clean, virtuous era of pre-Obama, although she forgets herself...

The gang that STILL can't shoot straight

2013-05-17T12:46:10-05:00

Classic. From The Hill: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Ohio) told The Hill that he hired a special oversight director in March, Rob Borden, at Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) behest, to help coordinate the various committee investigations. “[Borden] was hired...

Go West, young Foxes

2013-05-17T11:33:27-05:00

In what I gather is a celebratory announcement, Breitbart reports, "Allen West Makes it Official Over at Fox News." They quote from Fox's press release: "Representative West’s congressional and military experience along with his fearless approach to voicing key issues...

In the yawn camp

2013-05-17T10:48:06-05:00

I guess this is one of those things that depends on how you look at it. Josh Marshall says "Wow, this is pretty epic," while Kevin Drum writes that "It's not as if we didn't know this already." Other commentators...

The hooting IRS hearing

2013-05-17T09:08:57-05:00

I'm watching the IRS hearing, in which, much like the Benghazi brouhaha, Republicans are delivering the astonishing revelation that bureaucracies can be slow, ham-handed, and, in a word ... bureaucratic. I'm still trying to collect myself. Who knew? The hearing's...

A Klein must-read

2013-05-17T07:45:12-05:00

Ezra Klein has scrupulously channeled President Obama's mind, as well as yours and mine, as well as every sober brain and despairing intellect in the country. Here's the president, saying what he thinks he can't say, although he can, and...

Housekeeping II

2013-05-16T15:06:02-05:00

Well so far no complaints about the recently activated "verification code" commenting system, which rather surprises me. Last night I test drove it a few times and in half of those occasions I couldn't distinguish letters from numbers, or, if...

A Bulworthy refinement

2013-05-16T14:47:35-05:00

I agree with Chait's blunt assessment that "Bullshit works" but "Bulworth doesn’t," which may surprise, given that I've spent two posts this morning urging the president to "go Bulworth." But, as always, context matters. Chait explains: Any political scientist will...

A less than gentle guide to drawing conclusions is what's needed

2013-05-16T13:25:48-05:00

At this afternoon's joint press conference with the Turkish prime minister, President Obama, in a sadly characteristic response to a reporter's question about the current administration waxing Nixonian, said he would let the folks in the press "draw [their] own...

A John Wayne investigation

2013-05-16T10:51:24-05:00

Abstract of John Boehner's morning press conference: We in the GOP demand two things: first, mass incarcerations, then, the facts. We're the party of liberty. Constitutional conservatism indeed.

When did you last hear of "constitutional liberalism"?

2013-05-16T10:27:06-05:00

Sen. Rand Paul, speaking last week to a group of right-wing Iowa Christianists: I’m not advocating everyone go out and run around with no clothes on and smoke pot. I’m not a libertarian. I’m a libertarian Republican. I’m a constitutional...

"Going Bulworth"

2013-05-16T08:17:50-05:00

The NYT's Peter Baker references President Obama's aborted fury: In private, he has talked longingly of “going Bulworth,” a reference to a little-remembered 1998 Warren Beatty movie about a senator who risked it all to say what he really thought....

Housekeeping

2013-05-15T18:55:44-05:00

Sorry but I had no choice. Since Typepad can't stop spam from flooding the comments section, and I haven't the time to police the area, I've had to opt for a "randomly generated verification code" for all commenters to enter...

The trashiest Allen & VandeHei yet

2013-05-15T15:34:09-05:00

Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, Politico's dual foghorn of hysteria squared, are positively giddy over the Obama administration's scandal-plagued prospects. I could find only one incontrovertible sentence in their sadistic gushing: [T]he press, after years of being accused of being...

Pressure works

2013-05-15T14:47:10-05:00

The Hill: The White House on Wednesday asked Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to reintroduce a media shield law amid criticism of the Department of Justice’s subpoena of Associated Press phone records.... A spokesman for the New York lawmaker said Wednesday...

Sober minds think alike

2013-05-15T12:49:16-05:00

Speaking on MSNBC, David Axelrod revealed why no with a dram of political sense could have been involved in the IRS scandal: "[I]f anybody political was involved in this, they would say, 'Are you kidding me?' " Speaking to Politico,...

Repent!

2013-05-15T10:44:44-05:00

Milbank on WH Press Secretary Carney, who said yesterday that Obama’s love of press freedom “is backed up by his support for a media shield law.” This would be the shield law that died in Congress in 2010 because of...

Holder and the complication of Obama's life

2013-05-15T08:48:31-05:00

Eric Holder just complicated Barack Obama's life. In the aftermath of the immensely stupid Bay of Pigs invasion, President Kennedy, in a brilliant public-relations move, took personal responsibility for the fiasco. This stroke of ingenuity swept his embarrassment from the...