Free Republic

Democrats need to change their party mascot from the donkey to the squirrel. They divert the media's and the electorate's short attention spans with fleeting, fuzzy objects -- like the main canine character in the animated Pixar movie "Up," who was easily distracted from his main thoughts and serious duties by every last little moving trifle. Embassy attacks? Quick, find a squirrel! Warnings ignored? Squirrel! American troops killed by long-plotting jihadis exploiting security weaknesses? Squirrel! First Amendment sabotage by White House officials in the name of political correctness? Squirrel! Chronic joblessness, high gas prices, exploding dependency? Squirrel! Squirrel! Squirrel! As...

David Corn of Mother Jones released the “complete” audio and video of the secretly recorded Mitt Romney speech at a private fundraiser. Yet the complete audio and video is not complete. There is a gap in the recording immediately after Romney’s now famous discussion of the 47% of voters who don’t pay taxes. The cut in the audio and video comes while Romney is in mid-sentence, so we actually do not have the full audio of what Romney said on the subject.

Turns out tape cuts out part of controversial Romney answer. David Corn of Mother Jones released the “complete” audio and video of the secretly recorded Mitt Romney speech at a private fundraiser. Yet the complete audio and video is not complete. There is a gap in the recording immediately after Romney’s now famous discussion of the 47% of voters who don’t pay taxes. The cut in the audio and video comes while Romney is in mid-sentence, so we actually do not have the full audio of what Romney said on the subject. The next audio/video (Part 2) picks up with...

Few things are more difficult in politics than confronting failure and learning from it. It is especially difficult when a leader you have championed, and in whom you have placed your highest hopes, turns out to be less than he seemed. Such is the dilemma facing liberals in the age of Obama. Barack Obama entered the presidency with his sights and standards very high, and many liberals believed he could be the transformative figure they had been awaiting for generations. But by now it is clear that, by any reasonable measure (including those set out by Obama himself at the...

According to lefty journalist David Corn's new book Showdown, President Obama takes the Media Matters route and blames his woes on Fox News. In “Showdown: The Inside Story of How Obama Fought Back Against Boehner, Cantor, and the Tea Party” — which hits bookstores on Tuesday — the Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones chronicles the White House from the 2010 midterm elections to the start of the 2012 campaign. The book focuses on key moments of Obama’s presidency, such as Osama bin Laden’s assassination, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the Arab Spring, the debt ceiling crisis, and...

MSNBC Contributor and Mother Jones’ Washington Bureau Chief David Corn apparently got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. He was spotted in the Barnes & Noble at Union Station throwing a fit because his new book — his fifth — fitting called Showdown: The Inside Story of How Obama Fought Back Against Boehner, Cantor, and the Tea Party out today didn’t have its own display. He was overheard yelling at the manager that “every paper in America” was going to be talking about his book today and yet nobody could find it there.

President Barack Obama blamed Fox News for his political woes in a private meeting with labor leaders in 2010, saying he was “losing white males” who tune into the cable outlet and “hear Obama is a Muslim 24/7,” according to journalist David Corn’s new book, “Showdown.” In “Showdown: The Inside Story of How Obama Fought Back Against Boehner, Cantor, and the Tea Party” — which hits bookstores on Tuesday — the Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones chronicles the White House from the 2010 midterm elections to the start of the 2012 campaign. The book focuses on key moments of...

My father, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, has been in politics as long as I can remember. And as long as I can remember, media coverage about him has contained misstatements of facts. The vast majority are simple mistakes that are easily corrected, understood and rewoven into an ongoing storyline. But one of them seems to have taken on a life of its own, and simple corrections have not sufficed to set the record straight. Why does this happen? I can't be sure, but I suspect that the narrative created by these untruths proves to be so much...

The birthers have a plan to end Barack Obama's presidency—and in Arizona, they're making progress.

"This tragedy was ready-made for her to take a step, even just inches, beyond her base," David Corn said on MSNBC's "Hardball."

In a recent column, David Corn bemoans what his friend Jonathan Alter refers to as the "Obama Hate Machine (OHM)." Corn concludes, "That's an appropriate name for the right-wing attack network that will throw any charge it can concoct -- regardless of the facts -- at the president." This from the man who, in 2004, penned The Lies of George W. Bush, where, in the introduction, he declares, "George W. Bush is a liar. He has lied large and small, directly and by omission. He has mugged the truth-not merely in honest error, but deliberately, consistently, and repeatedly." According to...

<p>NewsletterShare Close this Share Box154 Comments | Post Comment.Wed Dec. 1, 2010 2:47 PM PST In its first months in office, the Obama administration sought to protect Bush administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies the that governed interrogations of detained terrorist suspects. A "confidential" April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Department—one of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaks—details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.</p>

Okay, where are all the UFO pictures? And the UFO videos? In recent years, the world has exploded with photographic and video equipment. There are about 5 billion cellphones in circulation throughout the world -- many, if not most, equipped with still and/or video cameras. (The number of mobile broadband subscriptions will probably top a billion globally this year.) And there are millions, if not billions, of easy-to-use video cameras in circulation, as well as billions of still-picture cameras. Essentially, billions of people are able to snap or otherwise shoot the least bit interesting thing that happens at a moment's...

Sarah Palin can't expect anyone to take her seriously as a presidential candidate--not after what she said this week. In recent days, the former Alaska governor and Tea Party fave has been on a tear against Journolist, a listserv for nearly 500 journalists, policy wonks, and academics, most of whom are self-identified liberals working for self-identified liberal outfits. The participants on this off-the-record email chain promoted their work, debated politics and policy (occasionally quite sharply), and traded and tested ideas for articles and columns. Last month, The Daily Caller, a conservative website, began running articles based on Journolist archives it...

The BP oil spill - millions of gallons of oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico, coastal businesses from Houston to Tampa shuttered, the potential for higher energy costs across the country and untold ecological damage. But according to Mother Jones magazine's David Corn, there is a silver-lining in all of this - that is, if you're a Democrat. MSNBC's June 21 "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" deviated from its usual efforts to blame the previous administration for the oil spill and instead gave thanks that the spill led to Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, apologizing to BP CEO Tony Hayward in...

There's a hole in the bottom of the ocean. Unemployment is still near 10 percent. There are two wars underway. And what are conservative pundits fretting about? That this year President Obama won't be laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day. The liberal watchdog outfit, Media Matters, has been keeping track of this latest right-wing meme: - Glenn Beck says, "Obama is skipping out on a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington Cemetery because he'll be in Chicago on vacation. I'm sorry, I don't ever, ever question the president's vacation. I...

So what the hell do these conservatives want out of Obama? And does it matter if Obama throws some leaves on a tomb? --David Corn ............................... Memorial Day. Those of us old enough to remember might recall a parent or grandparent who referred to it as “Decoration Day.” We might recall as well that “Memorial Day,” was not on the last Monday in May, serving as an endcap for a three day weekend of sales and vacations, but instead was observed on May 30, no matter what day of the week that was. It started shortly after the Civil War...

At the Copenhagen summit, there isn't a negotiating process to reach a climate pact. There are two. In 1992, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, representatives from more than 150 nations—signed an agreement giving birth to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. [It] began holding sessions called the Conference of the Parties—COPs. What's happening in Copenhagen is the 15th such session, hence the nickname COP15. In 1997, COP3 established the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that set binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions for 37 industrialized countries (cutting emissions 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012). At...

For years I have refrained from writing about 9/11 conspiracy theory. But Van Jones' resignation as top green jobs adviser in the Obama administration has compelled me to pick up this battering ram once again. In my PoliticsDaily.com column, I've (partly) blamed 9/11 conspiracy theorists for the downfall of Jones. Not that he's not accountable for his own behavior, but the perpetuators of the 9/11 nonsense launched a virus in left circles, and Jones was not savvy enough to keep clear of it. As I huffed: As far as I can tell, the only thing the so-called 9/11 Truth movement...

Lefty drive-by David Corn was expecting the worst when John Coale informed him at a pre-WHCD soiree Saturday that Todd Palin wanted to meet him. The Washington Post reported that Corn said: "I was worried he was going to punch me in the face."According to Mother Jones, of which Corn is Washington bureau chief: "Please don't hit me," Corn joked as he shook hands with the champion snowmobiler and all around bad-ass-looking guy.But there was no need for Corn's guilt trip. Alaska's First Gentleman demonstrated that he is indeed a gentleman, one who out-classes the liberati scribe who had dissed...