As Joe Windish noted this morning, Shepherd Fairey, the artist responsible for the “HOPE” portrait of President Obama, has admitted to tampering with and manufacturing evidence in a lawsuit related to the portrait. The Associated Press claims that Mr. Fairey owes them compensation, since the portrait was based on an AP photo of Obama. I’m curious to know whether Obama will get a question about the portrait at his next press conference. He bears no responsibility for what happened,...

Andrew Sullivan: How do we know that Petraeus is, or will be, a Republican? Does anyone actually have evidence of this? Or is all this speculation based on the stereotype that military = Republican? Jason Zengerle: As best I can tell, the assumption that Petraeus is a Republican stems from the fact that he is. From Steve Coll’s New Yorker profile of Petraeus: Petraeus is registered to vote as a Republican in New Hampshire—he once described himself to a friend as a northeastern Republican,...

Eli Lake reports. Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri was killed by a Predator strike last month. This week, he granted an interview to the Asia Times. Comment: Cases like this highlight why drone strikes have to be part of a larger strategy,” said Andrew Exum, a former Army Ranger officer and part of an assessment team that advised Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan. “Drone strikes like this can’t stand alone because … they are heavily dependent...

TNR’s Jon Chait is furious about Republican demagoguery: There’s not much fun in conceding that your side is winning over public opinion by exploiting ignorance and fear. It’s far more pleasant to imagine that the people have risen up in principled revulsion against statism. The vanguard of this fantasy movement rests at The Weekly Standard. One issue from a few weeks ago featured a cover image glorifying the town-hall protestors. Modeled after Norman Rockwell’s famous Freedom...

The Weekly Standard blog links to a BBC article which reports, For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. Naturally, the Standard reminds us that the BBC is not exactly a “bastion of right-wing extremism.” Fair enough. But the facts are a little more complicated. As I noted back in July, 1998 was an unusually hot year, whereas 1999 was relatively cool. Use 1998 as your benchmark, and it looks like temperatures have remained the same. Use 1999,...

I’m guessing he wouldn’t answer that question, but I hope his answer would be Morgan Tsavngirai, leader of a peaceful effort to bring democracy and human rights to Zimbabwe, which has been terrorized and impoverished by the Mugabe regime. Obama met with Prime Minister Tsvangirai at the White House in June. During the 2008 campaign, Obama contacted Tsvangirai: “to share my deep concern for the way his supporters are being targeted by the regime, and to express my admiration for...

I’m glad to see a staunch liberal staying strong on this issue. Hypothetical question: What if Feinstein were up for re-election in 2010 instead of 2012? I don’t know, but here’s what she said Sunday on ABC: The mission is in serious jeopardy. I think General McChrystal, who is one of our very best, if not the best at this, has said a counterterrorism strategy will not work. The president said to us very clearly, just as you said, George, we will not pull out. Now, if you’re...

The President’s reaction to winning the Nobel Prize was to say he will “not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments.” Presidents rarely refuse to take credit for any sort of achievement, so I won’t give Obama a hard time. What’s more interesting is how the Prize committee framed its decision: Agot Valle, a Norwegian politician and member of the committee, said in a phone interview that the choice of Mr. Obama was primarily related to his stance on nuclear...

I just sent off a post to a listserv discussion about J Street and AIPAC. After one AIPAC member described the organization as non-partisan, a critic shot back that AIPAC is no more non-partisan than Queer Nation or the KKK, because all the members basically have the same opinion about their #1 issue. Here’s my response to that: Non-partisanship and diversity of opinion are two different things. The narrow definition of non-partisanship — that it brings together both Democrats and...

I was pleasanly surprised to see that Rabbi Eric Yoffie will be one of the keynote speakers at the J Street convention later this month. Rabbi Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, describes himself as a dove who welcomed the founding of J Street as an alternative to AIPAC. Yet when J Street equated the actions of Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Yoffie lashed out, writing, [J Street's] words are deeply distressing because they are morally deficient, profoundly out of touch with Jewish...

He is the demented comedian who gave us Uncle Sugar. He also analyzes public policy in his role as associate director of the Regulatory Studies Program at George Mason University. Ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Rob Raffety: Incidentally, the editors of the Wall Street Journal acidly note that car sales began to plunge as soon as Cash For Clunkers expired. Cross-posted at Conventional Folly

Everyone wants to know what he’s thinking. If Gates says no more troops for Afghanistan, Obama can say “Why send more troops if George Bush’s secretary of defense says they’re not necessary?” If Gates says send the troops, it will be extremely hard for Obama to reject the advice of a secretary so highly-regarded that he was the only Bush cabinet member reappointed by Obama. So what is Gates thinking? Yesterday, he did a rare joint interview with Hillary Clinton, filmed...

Mike O’Hanlon says no. Eugene Robinson says, The men with the stars on their shoulders — and I say this with enormous respect for their patriotism and service — need to shut up and salute. Robinson adds that he applies the same standard to military officers whose opinions he agrees with. Clearly, Robinson shares the suspicion of many, including myself, that opinions about civil-military relations constantly flip as a result of partisan realignments. When George Bush went against...

Last month, I gave the President a hard time for denouncing GOP scare tactics, while relying on his scary stories to build support for his healthcare plan. On Monday, ABC’s Jake Tapper pointed out that the President’s scary stories were “not quite accurate” or, in plain English, completely misleading. First up, there’s the man who died when his insurance company cut off his chemotherapy because he allegedly failed to report he once had gallstones. Actually, the man...

Goldfarb has the goods. Four-and-a-half months ago, Chairman Carl Levin and eight other Democratic members of the Senate Armed Services Committee signed a letter to President Obama that began We agree that the United States has a vital national interest in ensuring that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven from which al Qaeda can plot attacks against our homeland, and that achieving this objective requires that we put in place a well-resourced, comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. Of...

By my count, there are a half-dozen posts about Roman Polanski on TMV’s front page right now. There are zero posts about Iran. May I suggest some reading about this obscure issue? For opposing views on sanctions and regime change, I recommend a pair of columns by Robert Kagan and Andrew Albertson that ran together in Wednesday’s Washington Post. Bottom line: The Swiss won’t rescue us again.

David Brooks’ column this morning is a guns-blazing assault on Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and the rest of the conservative talk radio-sphere. As Pete noted earlier, Brooks also has harsh words for those Republicans who ignorantly overestimate the influence of Limbaugh & Co. Let the record also show that Brooks is no more fond of “cynical Democrats, who love to claim that Rush Limbaugh controls the G.O.P.” Those cynics include White House spokesman Robert Gibbs,...

I’ve been off the network for almost two weeks now, while my wife and I were in the process of moving into our new home in Northwest DC. This move will mark the end of an era. I’ve packed up and moved almost every 12 months since graduating from college ten years ago. Now, I’ve found a place where I hope to live for ten or twenty years or longer. For the moment, it still feels like we’re just playing house and pretending to be grown-ups. Maybe if a couple of kids show...

Kevin asks: Did the Washington Post fulfill its duty to inform the public last night by running a mere eight separate pieces about Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s healthcare speech on Wednesday? Or is anything less than a dozen a sign that they aren’t really trying anymore? After all, Politico had at least 15 Wilson-related pieces, including a big front pager by Andie Coller headlined “A Party of Cranks?” I suppose I shouldn’t complain, but unlike...

I didn’t see the outburst that cost Serena her semi-final match, but I saw (as in, television saw) her smash her racket after losing the first set. Even that was pretty jarring. Strange. A sport where the crowd watches in respectful silence, while a champion smashes expensive equipment that most fans would be grateful to own. Cross-posted at Conventional Folly

WILL PELOSI FLIP ON AFGHANISTAN? The editors of the Wall Street Journal remind Madame Speaker that she was a singing a different tune on Afghanistan not long ago: It is well known that Mr. Obama has called Afghanistan a “war of necessity.” Less publicized is that in 2007 Speaker Pelosi was also saying that our real interests were in Afghanistan. “The war on terror is in Afghanistan,” Ms. Pelosi said just two years ago. “The fact that we weakened our commitment to Afghanistan...

Joe G. noted earlier that Joe Wilson scored very poorly on Politifact’s Truth-o-meter. Since that post, there have been five more targeting Rep. Wilson, including Kathy’s moderately titled, Is there a politician lower than Joe Wilson? I’m guessing Kathy has heard of Charlie Rangel. Anyhow, I’m not here to defend Joe Wilson, who most people never heard of until yesterday. I’m here to look at how President Obama scores on the Truth-o-Meter. After last night’s...

Those talk show hosts are awful. They say the most awful things. But it’s the President who runs the country, so I’m much more concerned with his disingenuity. From last night: Instead of honest debate, we’ve seen scare tactics. Also last night: Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it the most. And...

The editors of the New Republic have some harsh words[subscription only] for House Democrats, who toppled a GOP majority in 2006 by promising to clean up Washington. Charlie Rangel and John Murtha, two of the most senior and powerful Democrats in the House, are an embarrassment. Late August brought the stunning revelation that Rangel failed to note two bank accounts, each containing somewhere in the range of $250,000 and $500,000, on past financial disclosure forms. Add to this the unreported $75,000...

The situation in Afghanistan is bad and getting worse. Young Americans are losing their lives in a war that may soon lose the support of the American people. Fellow Americans, will we give in to despair, or will we find a new HOPE? Will we accept a painful defeat, or will we have the AUDACITY to seek a brighter future? Will we surrender to the partisanship of the old way of politics, or seek innovative BIPARTISAN solutions? You get my drift. Several months ago, it didn’t seem very interesting...