Elon Green

Before I leave you lovely people to your Sunday, here are two quotes from this morning’s “Meet the Press”: * “We’ve got to be talking about helping folks.” * “[T]he federal government has got a role in research and basic medical research trying to find cures for disease.” The lawmaker spouting those liberal talking points […]

Try not to chuckle as you read this morning’s Byron York column on President Obama’s State of the Union address. His thesis: White House spinners are working furiously in the final 72 hours before President Obama’s State of the Union speech. Their job: convince the recession-scarred American public that economic recovery is Obama’s top priority […]

As expected, The New Republic has under its new owner, ex-Facebooker Chris Hughes, developed a keener grasp of the web. Several days ago the magazine leaked the cover of the forthcoming issue — entirely white, in a nod to the Republican Party — and conservatives flipped out. Well, the story’s up and it’s a good […]

On Thursday, Ben Shapiro of Breitbart News reported that “one of the reasons that President Barack Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, has not turned over requested documents on his sources of foreign funding is that one of the names listed is a group purportedly called “Friends of Hamas.”” So far, neither Breitbart […]

I tried (I swear!) to abstain from a fourth Paul Ryan item, but this is too good to resist. The story of the morning is how the Romney campaign managed to keep the selection of Ryan a secret. The operatives are obviously pleased with themselves because they’re talking to anyone who will listen. As Michael […]

The effort to make Paul Ryan a non-threatening, middle-of-the-road politician is apparently underway. Exhibit A is this morning’s Politico offering, “5 keys to understanding Paul Ryan.” After “years of observing Ryan in action,” Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan have learned that he’s ambitious (“a man in a hurry”), he’s a politician (“virtually all of Ryan’s […]

It happens once in a blue moon, but I think Noam Scheiber is wrong. His thesis: In the event of a defeat, the Romney campaign believes the Paul Ryan pick acts as a sort of prophylactic for the candidate, by “shift[ing] blame for the loss onto the party’s conservative wing.” I have to believe the […]

Ross Douthat is troubled that Mitt Romney has not made his Mormon faith more central to his campaign. This passage is certainly hard to dispute: If Romney were a Presbyterian, Methodist or Jew, this would be an obvious part of his campaign narrative. Like George W. Bush’s midlife conversion or Barack Obama’s tale of “race […]

It mildly astonishing that, in a time of increasingly acceptance of marriage equality — nearly ten years after Lawrence v. Texas — that 31% of Americans believe “gay or lesbian relations between consenting adults” should be criminalized. Upon closer inspection, however, maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised. Here’s a tweet from Matt Drudge, arguably the […]

Per Mike Allen, the great Peter Boyer has a new story this week: NEWSWEEK cover, “HAS CHRIS CHRISTIE BLOWN IT? … Has Chris Christie passed his sell-by date? He showed the GOP how to win in 2012. Now he’s bogged down in Jersey.” That’s not even the half of it. Last night, the New York […]