This qualifies for an honorary chair in TMV’s Get A Life Club. I mean really. But people make good livings playing these kind of tiresome partisan word games. Meanwhile, we do have some serious issues to be discussed in this country and serious questions to ask the White House. (Or most of us would, anyway…)

Take a Peek at a new site: the Anti Drudge Report. Over the years there have been various attempts at using the Drudge format by others who wanted to see a version of it that is not done from a conservative Republican standpoint. Some of them are excellent (and we have linked to them and given a h/T when we remember to do that too quickly vanishing courtesy source acknowledgement) but it has never been easy...

Does the global “Occupy” movement reflect the very best of Western dedication to social and economic justice – or is it just a craven reflection of a civilization in moral decline? Columnist Iulian Leca of Romania’s Voxpublica writes that juxtaposing the mad rush for Black Friday shopping bargains against images of the protests exposes the ‘Occupiers’ as no better than the...

That’s how Ed Morrissey, quoting Karl Rove, characterizes The Donald’s private presidential debate. [I blog regularly here.]

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney seems to have finally broken his cycle of political unwinding and bad publicity with a move that will enhance his standing: he has declined participating in Donald Trumps debate. He says Trump — who can be seen these days with Newt virtually bowing down to him and acting as his virtual public relations person and with Gingrich asking about how could anyone POSSIBLY...

Thinking about Newt is exhausting—-all those policy reversals, all that profiteering from disguised lobbying, all that adultery while impeaching Clinton, all those crackpot gimmicks posing as intellect. Yet, there are many hands on both sides of the political spectrum to do the heavy lifting of deconstructing him. Maureen Dowd takes a whack at it: “His mind is a jumble, an amateurish mess lacking impulse...

Will the Community of Latin American and the Caribbean States, the new organization that pointedly excludes the U.S. and Canada, prove to be more than a footnote of history? This news item from Venezuela’s El Universal, the first of a series of CELAC articles we are working on, covers the opening session of the event, which featured a speech by Venezuela President Hugo Chavez. Chavez implored his guests...

The criticism expressed by the pundits of the slate of Republican presidential wannabes has been quite fierce — from the Left and from the Right. Judging from the muted, lethargic responses by Republicans — sometimes even agreement — including here at TMV, one would think that the GOP, this time, has decided to “Send in the Clueless” — or at least the “cynics” — to, first,...

WASHINGTON — The contest for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination has been described as a reality show and a circus. But what’s happening inside the GOP is quite rational and easily explained. The obvious Republican nominee was Texas Gov. Rick Perry — obvious because his government-bashing, ideology-mongering, secessionist-flirting persona was a perfect fit for a Republican primary...

One month ago today, the tranquility of a college campus known in more tranquil times as Happy Valley was rocked to its core with the arrest of former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky on 40 counts of child molestation and the arrest of the athletic director and a vice president for perjury. After initially dragging its feet, the university’s board of trustees fired legendary coach Joe Paterno...

Shame is dead or at least comatose as two public figures refuse to retreat into embarrassment over mounting evidence of their sexual misconduct. A would-be leader of the Free World, Herman Cain is surrounded by barbecue, bunting and bands in announcing “suspension” of his campaign after “continued hurt caused on me and my family” by numerous charges of harassing women as well as a long-term extramarital...

Calls for the legalization of drugs are coming from the strangest places these days – like from the president of the world’s leading cocaine exporter. Columnist Antonio Caballero of Colombia’s Semana writes that while he may be ‘the most submissive servant of the United States among world leaders,’ Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has done something not even Washington’s...

Staunch Conservative George Will has not been a shrinking violet when it comes to showing his disdain for pizza-king-turned-presidential-pretender Herman Cain. But this morning, on ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour, he held nothing back. After comparing Santorum favorably to Cain, Will launched right into the GOP presidential campaign process and specifically into Cain’s “disrespectful approach...

I agree with those who say that, in the end, Herman Cain has helped his brand: he’ll probably sell more books, get higher speaking fees and most likely wind up with a national radio talk show or a big fat contract at Fox News, perhaps if Roger Ailes finally boots out the political star who disappointed and frustrated him, Sarah Palin, when her contract is up: Rob Frankel, author of “Revenge of Brand...

If Americans could pick someone for the White House next year from a Chinese menu, what do opinion polls tell us about what they want? The seesawing Republican race, along with Obama’s falling favorables, suggest that voters’ appetites are more jaded than they have been for decades. But if they could pick and choose traits, what kind of composite President would we get? Resistance to Romney clearly shows...

Here’s a place where undying Cain supporters — those who don’t give a hoot about what several women have claimed he has done to them — can give him “encouragement;” can “show their support,” can “communicate their prayers;” can tell him why it is so important for him to stay in the race and become our next president; can trash the Left for “trying their best to discredit him because...

Will the Newt Gingrich boomlet sweep Gingrich into capturing the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination? Already there are signs of a shift: Gingrich is rising in the polls and (once again) becoming dismissive, arrogant and earning his reputation as of the best quote machines for journalists and supposed front runner Mitt Romney seems scared and showing it in a Fox News interview. But can it last? The Washington...

by WALTER BRASCH They buried Bouldergrass today. The cause of death was listed as “media-induced health.” Bouldergrass had begun his health crusade more than a decade ago when he began reading more than the sports pages of his local newspaper, subscribed to his first magazine, and decided TV news could be informative if it didn’t mention anything about wars, famines, and poverty. Based on what he read...

As the global financial crisis has worsened, Europeans could only look on with envy as the United States continued to issue debt and successfully sell it – and at amazingly low interest rates. That’s because America has a central bank empowered to be the ‘lender of last resort,’ which means that if private investors don’t buy U.S. Treasury Bonds, the FED will. According to Ulrike...

Our Quote of the Day comes from former CNN personality Larry King: “I want to be frozen on the hope that they’ll find whatever I died of and bring me back,” Larry King told a shocked group of dinner guests gathered at his Beverly Hills home for a party hosted by him and his wife, Shawn. I watched Larry King the two years before he retired and he looked frozen to me. Actually, if he wants to...

Why don’t I just copy the phrase “and so the bar is lowered again on our politics” and repaste it? Because I have to say it again: and so the bar is lowered again on our politics: it now seems as if Republican candidates could show up to for a debate moderated by one of America’s most prominent birthers, Donald Trump. It’s hard to see how the Republicans want to seriously try and...

Oh, Benny, Benny, Benny: Benjamin Netanyahu’s government unveils an ad campaign urging expats to come home, and some Jews in the U.S. find the message insulting. DETAILS HERE. It sounds like B. N. is making the same mistake people often do with groups: not all ethnic groups — not even his own — are monolithic. And some are offended when its assumed in a highly public way that they are.

Is Iraq in for a re-eruption of the kind of ethnic and religious strife it experienced during the height of the U.S. occupation? For Iraq’s Al Iraq News, Dr. Fadhil Al Badrani warns his countrymen that unless Iraqi leaders ‘review their political inclinations and renounce their differences,’ those fearing a U.S. pullout – and those celebrating it – will end up as ‘wood’...

There is a little section in the New York Times, published by its editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, that I sometimes overlook — but shouldn’t. For that little section is usually very big on insightful, razor-sharp political commentary. Yesterday’s piece, “Not-Lobbyists in Name Only,” written by David Firestone, was no exception. Firestone discusses the fact that “Washington teems with...

With the world looking to Berlin to save the euro, Germans may be reevaluating their decades of nearly constant criticism of the way the United States wields its influence. Die Welt columnist Clemens Wergin warns his readers not to expect gratitude from Europeans for saving the common currency, and lays bare the irony of Europe’s growing need for German help – and its fear of German power. For...