Steve Benen

Mitt Romney has run into quite a bit of scrutiny lately, most notably about his background as it relates to jobs. He said there have been times he worried about getting fired, and that wasn’t true. He said he “likes being able to fire people,” and that became a big headache. He’s being haunted by […]

A few weeks ago, PolitiFact made a serious mistake in selecting its “Lie of the Year.” As the editors of the political fact-checking website saw it, Democratic claims that House Republicans voted to “end” Medicare earned the ignoble designation, despite the fact that the Democratic argument is easily supportable. It was easy to predict what […]

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that won’t necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * Voting got underway this morning in New Hampshire, and all available evidence suggests the question isn’t whether Mitt Romney will win the Republican primary, but by how much. The final two-day […]

Igor Volsky flagged a great piece from Nancy French, who reported the other day that Rick Santorum supported an individual health care mandate when he ran for the Senate in 1994. His primary opponent, Joe Watkins, supported the same policy. French highlighted this report from April 1994: Santorum and Watkins both oppose having businesses provide […]

Take a guess who said this yesterday: “Voters are just now meeting the Real Romney — the buyout tycoon who executed takeovers, bankrupted businesses, and sent jobs overseas while killing American jobs.” MoveOn.org? No, it was Rick Perry. Let’s try another one: “Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to […]

When we last left the fight over the payroll-tax-break extension, House Republicans had caved and agreed to pass a two-month extension. It was a heartening victory for Democrats, and a bitter setback for the right, but it also set the stage for a similar fight before the end of February. I’ve been pretty pessimistic about […]

A variety of conservative media outlets, including Fox News, the New York Post, and the Daily Caller, are worked up this week about a newly-discovered White House outrage: a 2009 Halloween party. It’s tough to pinpoint exactly what it is the right is upset about, but it seems to boil down to two main complaints: […]

Reader F.B. flagged an interesting exchange on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” yesterday in which Joe Scarborough passed along assessments of the Republican presidential field from veteran political journalists. Here’s the clip: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Folks who’ve been covering politics for 40 years told Scarborough, “‘This is the […]

When Mitt Romney talked to the Nashua Chamber of Commerce yesterday morning about his take on premium support in health care policy, he couldn’t possibly have known the mess he was about to create for himself. By the end of the day, Romney’s “I like being able to fire people” had become quite a story, […]

Today’s edition of quick hits: * Europe: “Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France warned Greece on Monday that it needed to move forward with promised reforms or risk losing the next installment of badly needed bailout funds.” * Egypt: “Poised to dominate the new Parliament here, Egypt’s largest Islamist group […]