My 2012 "McLaughlin Awards" [Part 2]
[ Posted Friday, December 28th, 2012 – 18:02 UTC ]
Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!
Archive of Articles in the "Name-dropping" Category
My 2012 "McLaughlin Awards" [Part 1]
[ Posted Friday, December 21st, 2012 – 18:13 UTC ]
Welcome to the seventh annual homage (which sounds so much nicer than "blatant ripoff," don't you think?) to the television show The McLaughlin Group, since they have the most extensive year-end award category list of anyone around. Since "extensive" is my middle name (well, not really, although I do tend to wander off into the parenthetical wilderness at times, do I not?), such a long list fits right in here.
Petraeus's Public Shaming Better Than Hoover's Alternative
[ Posted Wednesday, November 14th, 2012 – 17:19 UTC ]
In a way, I'm glad that David Petraeus's sex scandal is playing out across the pages and television screens of the mass media. Because one of the alternative ways it could have been handled is so much worse.
Friday Talking Points [233] -- Wake Me When It's Over
[ Posted Friday, November 2nd, 2012 – 16:09 UTC ]
Every so often, I get an idea which I know would make me millions of dollars. Today, I had another one: develop and market a pill which, when taken, would put you to sleep until the morning after the election. The pill would be magically timed to work no matter when you took it, meaning a citizen in Texas or California might not want to take one until perhaps mid-October, but the folks in Iowa and New Hampshire might be expected to take one New Year's Eve -- thus avoiding not only the debates and punditary frenzy of the general election, but the entire primary season as well. It would be marketed under the name "The Rip Van Winkle Pill."
Friday Talking Points [232] -- Frankenstorm! Hank For Senate!
[ Posted Friday, October 26th, 2012 – 16:01 UTC ]
No matter what your political affiliations, I think we can all agree we're getting a little burnt out on Election 2012. "When will it end?" we wonder -- and we don't even live in a state currently under siege in the continuing television ad war. We can only imagine what Ohioans, Floridians, and Virginians must be experiencing right now.
Friday Talking Points [229] -- Beyond Debate
[ Posted Friday, October 5th, 2012 – 17:47 UTC ]
The first presidential debate of the 2012 season happened this week, and (it pains us to say) the only person who called the outcome correctly was Chris Christie. Last Sunday, he predicted a "game changer" of a debate, and that we'd all wake up Thursday with a whole new race and a whole new opinion of Mitt Romney. While we rarely agree with Chris Christie about much of anything, we've got to at least hand it to him -- in the midst of the usual pre-debate expectations-lowering game, he went rogue and predicted a big win for his guy, and he turned out to be correct.
Snap Debate Reactions
[ Posted Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012 – 20:59 UTC ]
There is a whole lot wrong with the way the media reports debates, on that we can all agree, I think. The overemphasis on who "won" and "lost," for starters. The inevitable boiling-down of ninety minutes into a nine-second soundbite from both candidates (which we'll see everyone agree on by tomorrow morning).
Republicans Finally Admit Silliness Of Obama TelePrompTer Caricature
[ Posted Monday, October 1st, 2012 – 15:56 UTC ]
This caricature began approximately the day Obama took office, and has been used scathingly by Republicans over the past four years. Obama was nothing more than a puppet, Republicans sneered, tied by the strings of his TelePrompTer, and unable to form a coherent thought or sentence on his own.
Friday Talking Points [228] -- Debate Questions I'd Ask
[ Posted Friday, September 28th, 2012 – 17:28 UTC ]
Unsolicited advice to the Romney campaign: this is not the way to convince voters that your candidate isn't Thurston Howell III. I'm just sayin'....
Friday Talking Points [227] -- Smile, Mitt, You're On Candid Camera!
[ Posted Friday, September 21st, 2012 – 15:25 UTC ]
Wouldn't it be amusingly ironic if Mitt Romney only managed to get 47 percent of the national popular vote for president? It would renew my faith that the universe has a sense of humor, that's for sure.