Palin Slams Bloggers in Pajamas

In a recent interview, Sarah Palin derided bloggers as people living in their parents’ basement blogging in their pajamas. Here’s the video: There is something truly ironic about that, given that the largest bastion of support for drafting Sarah Palin for vice-president was the blog Draft Sarah Palin for Vice-President. The blog has been widely credited with increasing...

Begich Leads Stevens in Alaska Senate Slow Count

We all thought convicted felon Ted Stevens had been narrowly reelected to the Senate, presumably as a placeholder to keep the seat in Republican hands.  Not so fast! Mark Begich made a dramatic comeback Wednesday to overtake Ted Stevens for the lead in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race. Begich, who was losing after election night, now leads Stevens by 814 votes — 132,196 to 131,382 —...

Obama Job Seeker Vetting Process

John McCain has caught quite a bit of flak for his rather cursory vetting process for his vice presidential selection.  Barack Obama is going to the other extreme, requiring applicants for even low level appointments in his administration to fill out a seven page, 63 question document covering every conceivable base. The questionnaire includes 63 requests for personal and professional records,...

Caption Contest

Time for the Thursday OTB Caption ContestTM (AFP/Alix Guigon) Winners will be announced Monday PM

OTB Latenight - 10,000 Maniacs

Life Without Google

At the moment, Google has gone dark. Google Reader isn’t responding.  Nor is Gmail.  Or Google News.  Nor Google Search.  Or Google Calendar. Life as we know it has pretty much ground to a stop. UPDATE:  The Googleverse has been restored.  I estimate the outage at 20 minutes.

OTB Radio - Tonight at 7 Eastern

The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live tonight from 7-8 Eastern. Dave Schuler and I will discuss Republican infighting, the Obama transition, the future of the war in Afghanistan, and this weekend’s G-20 summit. Please join us. We’ll also be taking your calls at (646) 716-7030. You can play the show, subscribe to its feed, or share it...

Conservatives Blew It

P.J. O’Rourke lets his fellow conservatives have it with both barrels in a long essay worth reading in full.  Some excerpts: Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye. Our 28-year conservative opportunity to fix the moral and practical boundaries of government is gone–gone with the bear market and the Bear Stearns and the bear that’s headed off to do you-know-what in the woods...

Whites Voted For Obama, Proving They?re Racist!

Larry Bartels examines the voting behavior of white Americans on Election Day and finds that, as he expected, we were very, very racist: According to the exit polls, Obama outpolled the previous Democratic nominee, John Kerry, among people from small towns and rural areas and among gun owners. He also did better than Kerry among white males, white Protestants, and white evangelicals. In short,...

Chris Matthews for Senate?

At least two statewide Pennsylvania polls have shown that “Hardball” host Chris Matthews would be a serious contender if he chose to challenge Arlen Specter for the Senate in 2010 and Matthews has indicated that he has at least some interest in running, WaPo’s Chris Cillizza reports. Matthews would be an interesting candidate.  His “Hardball” personality is annoying...

Not Buying Troubled Assets After All

Remember that emergency bailout, wherein the world would come to a complete halt if the government didn’t buy up all the bad loans? Hank Paulson says “Never mind.” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, AP/YahooNews Photo Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says that the $700 billion government rescue program will not be used to purchase troubled assets as originally planned. Paulson...

McCain: Some People Say There?s a Woman to Blame ?

John McCain was on the “Tonight Show” with Jay Leno last night, continuing his graceful exit from a bitter presidential race. Nov. 11, 2008: John McCain talks about life after the presidential campaign with Jay Leno on the In his first interview since conceding the presidential election, John McCain said Tuesday that Sarah Palin did not damage his presidential bid and he dismissed...

Why Not Bail Out GM?

Megan McArdle argues that those saying we should bail out General Motors and save its workers just like we did the banks and insurance companies miss the point of the bailout. Whereas a collapse of the financial sector had the ability to take down the rest of the economy with it, that’s just not true in manufacturing. Besides that, propping up the likes of Citibank will likely actually...

Taking Separation of Powers Seriously

Glenn Greenwald, reacting to reports that Barack Obama has told Harry Reid that Joe Lieberman should not be stripped of his committee chairmanship and thus making it very difficult for him to do so, has written a long and passionate plea for a return to vigorous separation of powers with strong institutional jealousies. [W]hatever the outcome here is, it’s vital that it be the...

Electoral College: A Defense

George Will argues that the 2008 election demonstrates precisely what the Framers sought to prevent with the Electoral College. In a Presidential contest replete with novelties, none was more significant than this: A candidate?s campaign?for his party?s nomination, then for the presidency?was itself virtually the entire validation of his candidacy. Voters have endorsed Barack Obama?s...