Israeli Ambassador to the USA Dr. Michael Oren (a native of New Jersey) spoke this evening at Cincinnati’s Mayerson JCC. It is still rather icy out and over 700 people came to hear him. These are not his exact words, just my notes on some things he said: Someone asked how we live with uncertainty – we do it every day and have done so since 1948. Keeping in mind what Iran has done without...

The tone of Thursday night’s GOP séance was set in the first minute, not by the candidates or moderator, but whooping and applause of hand-picked partisans in the hall when Newt Gingrich attacked CNN’s John King and all the media as “despicable” for asking about his second wife’s character charges against him that had dominated the news cycle all day. In contrast, for 1960’s first presidential debate...

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Most analysts agree there were two moments from last night’s CNN South Carolina Republican Party Presidential Debate that could change the narrative about former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as front-runner. These two segments are the ones that would be shown in the future by networks when they talk about debates, if these segments have the impact that many think they will. #1: Former House Speaker Newt...

Is it fair to call Mitt Romney a ‘lair’? Continuing with his analysis of the U.S. presidential campaign, columnist Patrick Etschmayer of Switzerland’s News doesn’t hold back as he lays out why it would be hard to argue otherwise – and that ironically, this is what so suits Romney for running for political office. For Switzerland’s News, columnist Patrick Etschmayer starts...

Update 3, 3:20pm Pacific: Last week a British court ruled that a British student can be extradited to the U.S. for running a website with a .com address that linked to sites with pirated TV shows and films. Get used to copyright as the argument for America as a virtual Gitmo. Note: SOPA/PIPA not required for US Customs to treat links to allegedly copyrighted material like murder. Update 2, 3:05 pm Pacific:...

Is Mel Brooks directing this movie? Tonight’s final South Carolina debate will no doubt start as usual with the gang sitting under the palmettos full of Tea Party beans, competing to exude the loudest brain gas about Barack Obama and one another, but where do they go from there? Will Rick Perry, who almost started a war with Turkey last time, punch another horse? (Nope, late news is that he’s doing...

The Washington Post: Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich in 1999 asked his second wife for an “open marriage” or a divorce at the same time he was giving speeches around the country on family and religious values, his former wife, Marianne, told The Washington Post on Thursday. Marianne Gingrich said she first heard from the former speaker about the divorce request as she was waiting in the home of her...

UPDATE: Rick Perry has just made it official — and, finally, commonsensical. At an emotional news conference in North Charleston, S.C. Rick Perry announced that he is dropping out of the race (“suspending the campaign”) and is endorsing a “redeemable” Newt Gingrich. === A few days ago, I “postscripted” the announcement that Jon Huntsman intended to drop out of the Republican presidential...

Apology is overdue to George W. Romney for my remembering him only as an unsophisticated man whose remarks about being “brainwashed” in Vietnam cost him the 1968 GOP nomination. In Rolling Stone, Rick Pearlstein summons up the elder Romney, with ancient videotape, to recall a time when some politicians still tried to tell the truth, even if it derailed their ambitions. The lessons Mitt Romney drew from his...

Today is a big day for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, indeed.Will it be a big, bad day? First, today is the big South Carolina CNN debate — a true “make or break” debate since polls now show Gingrich coming on strong against front-runner former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (who is still 10 points ahead in one poll). New and old media punditry have been buzzing with the question: is...

Has the North Korean regime ‘played’ one of the Western World’s leading news agencies? Cho Jong-ik of South Korea’s Daily North Korea reports on concerns about the announcement that North Korea has given the Associated Press permission to become the first Western outlet ever permitted to open an office in Pyongyang. For the Daily North Korea, reporter Cho Jong-ik writes in part: North...

Are America’s ‘big three’ credit agencies at fault for wrongly downgrading Eurozone debt at the worst possible time – or are European leaders just looking for someone else to blame for their troubles? According to this editorial from Germany’s Die Welt, the blame for the mess in Europe rests squarely on the shoulders of European officials who would rather tell their constituents...

File this in the “here we go again” file. Are we about to see another Drudge Report exclusive that will reconfigure the political horizon? Matt Drudge has a screeching headline on his site with an “exclusive” about a “civil war” raging at ABC over when to air a supposedly explosive interview with Marianne Gingrich, one of the former House Speaker’s wives. Here’s...

There is no question as to how utterly uniformed Rick Perry’s remarks about Turkey were Monday night in South Carolina. Calling one of our staunchest NATO partners a country that is being ruled by “Islamic terrorists” is not really the savviest thing one would expect from a presidential candidate. But perhaps we are being too rough on the Texas governor. Here’s the question posed specifically to Perry...

Just look under the Hollywood sign.

By all accounts, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is poised to win the South Carolina primary and go on to win big in Florida. Very soon this lady will have sung. But now — at the seeming moment of his triumph — things are suddenly getting rockier for Romney. You can see it in three development. DEVELOPMENT ONE: The Democratic National Committee was apparently ecstatic over his performance...

Is there any historical basis for the alliance between certain Latin American nations and Islamic fundamentalist Iran? For Spain’s La Vanguardia, apparently exasperated columnist Pilar Rahola says that, “If Simon Bolívar were raise his head and see Ahmadinejad and Chávez in his noble land, he would die a second time of pure shame.” For La Vanguardia, Pilar Rahola writes in part: At what...

My Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” – Martin Luther King Jr. Doug Bursch blogs and tweets Fairlyspiritual.

WASHINGTON — This is what progress looks like for a president named Barack Hussein Obama. Not so long ago, many in conservative and Republican ranks were eager to paint him as an alien creature far removed from American life as most Americans understand it. A determined cadre insisted Obama was not even eligible to be president, claiming he was born outside the United States. Obama eventually put...

UPDATE: As expected, Former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah formally announced that he is ending his Republican presidential run “with a call for party unity, asking the five candidates he leaves on the field to end their negative ads and chastising President Obama for engaging in ‘class warfare.’” More from the New York Times: “This race has degenerated into an onslaught of negative and personal...

Moyers & CompanyCheck your local PBS schedule*, fire-up your DVR. Bill Moyers is back with a new show, Moyers & Company. The series, produced by American Public Television, begins with three broadcasts focused on the intersection of politics and money. Moyers, who will “believe corporations are people when Texas executes one” (Stephen Colbert interview, 10 January), interviews Jacob Hacker...

You may go see the Non Sequitur cartoon from Friday, 1/13/12 which the Plain Dealer did not run. I used it as a teaching moment with my 6th grader and he got why it could be objectionable right away. Whether or not it should have been published is of course a different matter. Here are the comments at my Facebook thread and many times more can be found at former Plain Dealer journalist Connie Schultz’s...

The GOP debates could make a profit on Pay TV if they let Stephen Colbert join the panel. How much would it be worth to see him match wits with Mitt Romney and Rick Perry? Sadly, like his other ventures, Colbert’s South Carolina candidacy is only fodder for his reality-blurring show, the perfection of a trend that began to emerge in the 1960s when TV made American life too complicated for Bob Hope-Milton Berle...

by Walter Brasch Tucked between the New Hampshire primary and Ground Hog Day, and directly competing against an NFL playoff game, is Saturday night’s annual Miss America pageant. Although the headquarters is still near Atlantic City, where it originated in 1921, the pageant—don’t call it a beauty contest—has been a part of the Las Vegas entertainment scene for eight years. Apparently, the Las Vegas motto...