Chris Wallace has taken a lot of criticism in recent months from the White House and other Democrats for allegedly crossing that hazy Fox News line between news gathering and conservative punditry. But on Sunday, Wallace had his Fox News colleague Sarah Palin as a guest, and it was a real journalistic interview. Unlike Fox News's Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck, who spent their interviews with Palin praising her symbolic value, Wallace went after Palin--questioning the logic behind her pro-life views, calling her out on walking away from her job as Alaska Governor (Ronald Reagan never walked away, Wallace points out) and drilling down on her views on everything from Rahm Emanuel to Rush Limbaugh. The climax of the interview happened like this: WALLACE: All right. Handicap the 2012 GOP presidential race for us. Who's the front-runner? PALIN: No idea. I have no idea. WALLACE: Well, you're not a very good analyst. PALIN: Well, fire me, then, Roger...  Comment

Sarah Palin’s speech at the expensive tea party convention in Nashville was more an attack on President Obama than a blueprint for what conservatives need to do to moving forward. To flag-waving, cheers, an standing ovations, Palin pleased the crowd with her broadsides...  Comment

Joe Scarborough was surely right about one thing: he's going to take some flak... On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough said that Sarah Palin has been "lowering the bar" with her public pronouncements, asserting that she hasn't done the necessary homework to permit her to speak seriously on the issues. Joe also claimed that while top conservatives are afraid to take Palin on publicly, "behind the scenes" they are angry at her for her alleged lack of preparation...  2 Comments

During the Q&A following her speech, Sarah Palin appeared to be reading notes off her hand. A close inspection captured in photos by Huffington Post make the case. As noted by Oliver Willis, Palin refers to President Obama as “a guy with a teleprompter,” while depending on her own “palm pilot”...  2 Comments

If there's one thing that unites the Republican Party it's that the stimulus bill was a job-killing piece of legislation that was the worst thing in the whole entire world for the economy, right? Or maybe that's just what unites them in public, because in private the Washington Times reports they've been working overtime to get their hands on job-creating stimulus cash. Sen. Christopher S. Bond regularly railed against President Obama's economic stimulus plan as irresponsible spending that would drive up the national debt. But behind the scenes, the Missouri Republican quietly sought more than $50 million from a federal agency for two projects in his state...  1 Comment

One of the more commonplace assertions among pundits on the center-right -- made rather carelessly by Victor Davis Hanson and more thoughtfully by Jay Cost, is that agenda put forward by Obama and the Democrats is overwhelmingly unpopular and that De...  Comment

Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama has released the "holds" he had placed on every one of President Barack Obama's nominees, his office said Monday. "The purpose of placing numerous holds was to get t...  Comment

At the video, CNN's Rick Sanchez interviews Judson Phillips, the organizer of the Nashville tea party convention. It's a moderately interesting discussion, but toward the end Mr. Phillips blanks when Sanchez argues that President Obama inherited the current unprecedented budget deficits from the Bush administration...  Comment

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton - charged with overseeing the United Nations aid mission - made his second trip since the January 12 earthquake to Haiti, where he expressed confidence in the Haitian government's ability to help the country recover. After meeting with government leaders, visiting a clinic and overseeing the delivery of supplies, Clinton said he was confident about the government of President Rene Preval. "The government has the best chance in my lifetime to slip the chains of the past," he said...  1 Comment

The Dalai Lama will meet with President Obama in February. President Barack Obama will meet with the Dalai Lama later this month, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said...  Comment

While Beijing is angry about U.S. plans to sell weapons to Taiwan, in Taiwan itself, the democratically-elected president of that country has come under attack for...  Comment

Soon Britons will be able to get smashed at the pub while their pint glasses won't. The shatterproof pint glass was proudly unveiled by the government on Thursday. Officials swore the country would save billions in health care...  1 Comment

Former Bush speechwriter and torture-thrillist Marc Thiessen has, of late, been mounting some sort of prolonged campaign of pure, mountain-grown idiocy. He reached a new plateau today with a piece that essentially bitches about how President Barack Obama's success at eliminating terrorists is putting the country in danger. I know: What? Just so we're clear, let the record state that Thiessen agrees that Obama is doing a good job killing terrorists. I found this out by searching his article for the phrase, "to be sure," which I knew was in there somewhere!  Comment

There are lots of reasons for excluding gays and lesbians from the military. But current supporters of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy insist that really, it all comes down to cohesion. Keep gays out, and soldiers will stick together through thick and thin. Let gays in, and every platoon will disintegrate like a sand castle in the surf...  Comment

Earlier this month when Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called to end the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, a strange thing happened: the GOP was silent. Despite the expected criticism from John McCain, Republicans had little else to say on the topic, and in today’s New York Times columnist Frank Rich writes, "The right’s noise machine was on mute." The proposed repeal also received little attention from TV networks, with Fox News sharing a brief, fair report and CNN attempting to gain more viewers by featuring old homophobic clichés. But why?  1 Comment

All U.S. military health facilities around the world will now carry the emergency contraception pill known as Plan B One-Step, according to a new Department of Defense policy. The decision to carry the pill, often referred t...  Comment

Sarah Palin apparently thinks we need some "divine intervention" in our politics, as if we haven't been Jesus'd enough already by these clowns who don't believe in the separation of church and state. Not surprising since these great Tea Party "patriots" think the only "real Americans" are Christians. I wish Palin’s concern for the media criticizing those who inject religion into our politics was true. Sadly it is just the opposite as we’ve seen with the likes of the Tony Perkins and other hate mongers being allowed to weigh in on DADT and the abortion debate. And someone tell me how easy it is for anyone who is an atheist to get elected? Or who’s not a Christian for that matter? I don’t know what world Palin is living in, but it doesn’t resemble the one I’ve been watching when it comes to those expressing their faith having any problems in the media or with getting elected...  Comment

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is asking the largest for-profit health insurer in California to "provide a detailed justification" for expected rate increases that could hike its consumers' premiums as much as 39 percent. In a letter to Leslie Margolin, president of Anthem Blue Cross, Sebelius struck a harsh tone about the expected rate hike, which was reported this past weekend by the California press. Calling the expected 39-percent rate increases "extraordinary" and noting that they were "up to 15 times faster than inflation," the HHS Secretary asked for a detailed synopsis of how much of that money would go to medical care versus administrative costs. "Your company's strong financial position makes these rate increases even more difficult to understand. As you know, your parent company, WellPoint Incorporated, has seen its profits soar, earning $2.7 billion in the last quarter of 2009 alone," Sebelius wrote...  Comment

A funny thing happened to me at airport security this week: The full-body scanner appeared to detect my fake left breast. After I sauntered sleepily through the regular scanner at Denver International Airport, the TSA guy motioned me into the clea...  Comment

The opening speaker for the Tea Party convention got real out of pocket when he suggested reinstating the literacy test for blacks to stop them from voting. The opening night speaker at the Tea Party convention suggested a return to a “literacy test” to protect America from presidents like Obama a segregation-era method employed by southern US states to keep blacks from voting...  2 Comments

The hunt is on for the person responsible for a billboard that causing quite a bit of confusion in rural Minnesota. The billboard, which feature a picture of former president George W. Bush and the tagline “Miss me yet?,” went up in Wyoming, Minnesota last week. In the days since its debut, residents have been left wondering what the billboard means (Isn’t it obvious?) and who paid to have it erected...  1 Comment

Rep. John Murtha's (D-PA) death on Monday has been reported by various news outlets as resulting from "complications following gallbladder surgery." Via Taegan Goddard, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the "complications...  2 Comments

A John Edwards sex tape, made with former mistress (and current girlfriend?) Rielle Hunter actually exists. No matter how many times we hear about this, no matter how many reliable sources confirm its existence, this will never cease to be a shock...  Comment

Rep. John Murtha, the tall, gruff-mannered former Marine who became the de facto voice of veterans on Capitol Hill and later an outspoken and influential critic of the Iraq War, died Monday. He was 77. The Pennsylvania Democrat had been suffering complications from gallbladder surgery. He died at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va...  Comment