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<p>Squirming like a flounder and blushing a terrible shade of crimson, Eliot Spitzer made his debut as a CNN talk-show host last night, looking as rushed and uncomfortable as a john on an austerity budget.</p> <p>I haven't seen a man look so embarrassingly awkward in the presence of a woman since the day I saw Eliot and his wife, Silda, together at a press conference.</p>

Yes, children Sarah Palin really can become president of the United States. Take a look at yesterday's CNN poll. It shows Mitt Romney just three points ahead of Irish American Palin right before the kickoff for the 2012 republican nomination which begins the day after the November mid-terms. That three points is within the margin of error. It is also within the margin of error of those pundits who say that Palin has no chance to be selected. They are dead wrong and this poll bears that out. This poll says otherwise, as do a slew of results, including last...

It is a truism of modern media that few subjects draw more attention than politics. If you're a savvy journalist or blogger looking to attract page views in today's 24-hour news cycle, the shortcut to success requires slapping some political "analysis" on to whatever story you're covering, like so: "University releases groundbreaking cancer study: What does it mean for Obama?" Of course, I've been guilty of this to some extent in my (young) journalism career. And having spent the past few months interning at a national news outlet with a website that has scores of competitors, I understand all too...

Former Bay State Gov. Mitt Romney - believed by many political observers to be a clear GOP front-runner in the 2012 presidential race - is virtually in a dead heat with contender Sarah Palin, according to a new CNN poll. The poll shows Romney only 3 percentage points in front of former Alaska Gov. Palin, within the margin of error. “It’s a pretty open contest, and that’s interesting in and of itself,” said Suffolk University political professor John C. Berg. “It means the primary contest will be tighter.” Only months from the unofficial start of the 2012 presidential campaign, Romney...

Spencer Ackerman - Wired, FireDogLake, Washington Independent, Talking Points Memo, The American Prospect Thomas Adcock - New York Law Journal Ben Adler - Newsweek, POLITICO Mike Allen - POLITICO Eric Alterman - The Nation, Media Matters for America Marc Ambinder - The Atlantic Greg Anrig - The Century Foundation Ryan Avent - Economist Dean Baker - The American Prospect Nick Baumann - Mother Jones Josh Bearman - LA Weekly Steven Benen - The Carpetbagger Report Ari Berman - The Nation Jared Bernstein - Economic Policy Institute Michael Berube - Crooked Timer, Pennsylvania State University Brian Beutler - The Media...

Remember four months ago when she was demanding that they remove her name from an RNC fundraising invitation to donors? Some pol-watchers at the time took that as a sign that she was trying to distance herself from the Republican brand. (“Who wouldn’t want to be sort of seen as more of an outsider and that’s how she’s positioned herself.”) Fast-forward to today and suddenly she’s signing letters on their behalf. What gives? Two theories. One: She’s turned out to be such a good soldier and is so favorably disposed to Michael Steele that she’s willing to do a fundraising...

And out-of-touch leaders don't see the need to cool things off. It is, obviously, self-referential to quote yourself, but I do it to make a point. I wrote the following on New Year's day, 1994. America 16 years ago was a relatively content nation, though full of political sparks: 10 months later the Republicans would take the House for the first time in 40 years. But beneath all the action was, I thought, a coming unease. Something inside was telling us we were living through "not the placid dawn of a peaceful age but the illusory calm before stern storms."

As the video popped-up this week of far-left, ultra wealthy, and privileged CBS “News” anchor Katie Couric going after then Governor Sarah Palin while mocking the names of her children, it reminded me all over again how much Palin is owed an apology from the “leadership” of the McCain campaign. This anti-Palin “let them eat cake” video rant by Couric (filmed the day McCain announced the traditional values Palin as his running mate) serves as further proof that most in the mainstream media are not only liberal and unethical, but dangerously out of touch with everyday Americans and everyday life....

Katie Couric, whose real name is Katherine Anne Couric, mocked the names of Sarah Palin’s children during a rehearsal in her studio. Her comments, made during the 2008 presidential campaign, are being discussed in the blogosphere today after being leaked. “Where the hell do they get these names from?” she asked, referring to Palin children Trig and Track, sending her crew into peals of laughter. I have some new names for CBS. In a tragedy in Louisiana this Monday, six young teenagers drowned. Their names were: Takeitha, JaMarcus, JaTavious, Litrelle, LaDairus and Latevin. These, like the names of Palin’s children,...

Raw footage of CBS News anchor Katie Couric recording voice-overs for news segments about Gov. Sarah Palin on the day she was named as John McCain’s running mate: [...] What’s newsworthy here isn’t merely that Couric mocked the GOP’s historic Vice Presidential nominee–most of us have said things we’re not proud of in private–it’s that she did so so brazenly in front of her supposedly objective news team. Conservatives4Palin raises another good point about Couric and Co.’s efforts to marginalize the former Alaska governor from day one: “[W]hat in [Palin's] impressive biography did CBS News and Couric choose to focus...

The following video was sent to C4P’s tips account. As you can see, the video shows Katie Couric preparing to go on the air on the day John McCain announced Governor Palin as his running mate. It shows some tantalizing hints of Couric’s attitude toward the Governor--when talking about first Trig, then Track, Couric says “where the hell do they get these [names]?...” At that point the producer running the sound board shut off the sound because he or she didn’t want to have Couric’s disdainful and contemptuous view of Governor Palin’s children captured on even an internal CBS tape...

One of the delights about the Internet is watching new people use a new technology to make the same old mistakes. Consider the admissions by Politico and Greg Sargent that they regularly run items on Sarah Palin simply to drive traffic. From Politico: “More traffic comes from an item on Sarah Palin’s ‘refudiation’ faux pas than from our hundreds of stories on the complexities of health care reform or Wall Street regulation.” Perhaps if Politico were as vigilant in its coverage of health care reform and Wall Street regulation as it is every slip by Sarah Palin readers would be...

A tantalizing bit of 2012 gossip dropped way, way down in an otherwise fun piece about amnesty shills boo-hooing over having (temporarily) lost McCain. Note to Politico: This is what’s called “burying the lede.” Their hope now is that Republican presidential candidates and former operatives under Bush, a reform proponent, can convince GOP congressional leaders that the issue needs to be dealt with before 2012 — or that they could risk alienating the burgeoning Hispanic vote in the crucial swing states of New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona and Florida.Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a front-runner for the nomination, has signaled...

Repeat after me: “Liberal media bias is a myth”… (Daily Caller)- In the hours after Sen. John McCain announced his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate in the last presidential race, members of an online forum called Journolist struggled to make sense of the pick. Many of them were liberal reporters, and in some cases their comments reflected a journalist’s instinct to figure out the meaning of a story. But in many other exchanges, the Journolisters clearly had another, more partisan goal in mind: to formulate the most effective talking points in order to defeat...

K. remembers seeing Palin emerge and walk onto the stage, dressed in a sharp black suit, as the crowd in Ohio went wild. In Chicago, the Liberals around him cringed, as that excitement and energy reverberated through the large screens and smacked them in the face. K. will never forget two Liberal women, clutching each other, faces blanched, with true dread in their eyes. “What are we going to do now? She’s incredible. He can win now, with her. What are we going to do?”. “We need to destroy her. We need the media to destroy her”. “They need to...

I guess it’s time we did. Palin is one of the top two contenders for the nomination right now. She is the only candidate with an actual and substantial popular base of support, the only one who can generate real popular enthusiasm. She has little in the way of an organization of her own, but she’s the candidate in the best position to coopt the organization that the Tea Party Movement is building. And to the extent that her endorsements are perceived to have made a real difference in the primaries (as, after Georgia, they are beginning to be), that...

From a remote location on an island off Alaska’s coast, former Governor Sarah Palin is blasting what she describes as the “sick puppies” in the media who immediately and ruthlessly attacked her when Sen. John McCain picked her as his running mate during the 2008 presidential campaign. In exclusive remarks to The Daily Caller, Palin described “hordes of Obama’s opposition researchers-slash ‘reporters’” descending upon Alaska in the days after she was picked by McCain. She said the media became a key reason she decided not to finish out her term as governor and faults, in part, the McCain campaign for...

In the hours after Sen. John McCain announced his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate in the last presidential race, members of an online forum called Journolist struggled to make sense of the pick. Many of them were liberal reporters, and in some cases their comments reflected a journalist’s instinct to figure out the meaning of a story. But in many other exchanges, the Journolisters clearly had another, more partisan goal in mind: to formulate the most effective talking points in order to defeat Palin and McCain and help elect Barack Obama president. The tone...

Oh boy, here we go again. Mitt Romney has his eyes on a major political office -- if only that damned woman would get out of the way! Romney, of course, is running for president in 2012, and has been from the moment he used a comically red meat-laden CPAC speech to depart from the 2008 GOP race. And his prospects, at least for the Republican nomination, aren't bad: He's the next-in-line guy, he'll have plenty of cash, and there just aren't that many other options. But then there's Sarah Palin. She may ultimately decide not to run, but this...

‘Anonymous Numbskulls’ – Romney Calls for Cease-Fire with Palin July 16, 2010 1:04 PM ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: How do you end a political food fight in 140 characters or less? A series of delectable, anonymous quotes were forming an early front in the battle for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination – until former Gov. Mitt Romney took to Twitter today to put a stop to it. The fun began when a pair of Romney intimates sounded off – without their names attached --about former Gov. Sarah Palin: “She's not a serious human being,” one Romney adviser told Time’s...