Ari Melber

Ari Melber

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Ari Melber is the Net movement correspondent for The Nation magazine, the oldest political weekly in America, and a writer for The Nation's 2008 campaign blog. He is also a columnist for The Politico and a contributing editor at the Personal Democracy Forum, a nonpartisan website covering technology’s impact on democracy. Melber served as a Legislative Aide in the U.S. Senate and was a national staff member of the 2004 John Kerry Presidential Campaign.

Email: amelber(at)hotmail.com
Facebook Group: Net Movement Politics
MySpace: MySpace.com/arimelber
Monthly writing distribution list: Google groups

As a commentator on public affairs, Melber has been quoted by publications such as The New York Times, Roll Call, and Time, and appeared on national radio and television, including CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, C-SPAN, FOX, MSNBC, NPR and Air America, on programs such as “American Morning,” "Washington Journal," "Power Lunch," “The Live Desk," “Weekend Live with Brian Wilson,” "MSNBC Reports with David Shuster," "Your World with Neil Cavuto," "MSNBC Election Night After Hours," “MSNBC Live with Contessa Brewer,” "MSNBC Live with Amy Robach," “MSNBC Live with Chris Jansing,” and "MSNBC Live with Alex Witt," among others.

Melber has been a featured speaker at forums sponsored by the Harvard Law School, Yale Political Science Department; Campaign for America's Future; Young Democrats of America; Democracy for America; New York's Blogging Liberally; YearlyKos 2006, the first national netroots convention; and YearlyKos 2007. He also served on the Advisory Committee to the YearlyKos Leadership Forum for seven presidential candidates in August 2007.

Melber's commentary has appeared in The Baltimore Sun, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Forward, Alternet.org, CBSNews.com, TPMCafe, DemocracyArsenal.org and The American Prospect Online, among others, and he has reviewed nonfiction books for The New York Post, Kirkus Reviews, and The Stranger. His writing has also been widely cited by publications across the spectrum, such as the New York Times Magazine, NYTimes.com, The Week, The Washington Times, WashingtonPost.com, Economist.com, Time.com, The Wall Street Journal Online, The National Review Online, The Atlantic Monthly Online, The American Spectator Online, and Slate, among others. He is a contributor to "MoveOn's 50 Ways to Love Your Country," a bestselling book about political activism (Inner Ocean Publishing, 2004). He was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, and received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.


Selected Recent Writing
About Facebook, The Nation
Bush's 9/11 Tradeoff, The Nation
Obama, Race & The Presidency, The Nation
'Rage and Cave Democrats, The Nation
Is Obama's Iran Resolution the Antidote to Kyl-Lieberman?, The American Prospect Online
Will Democrats Restore Our Liberties Stolen in the Bush Era?, Alternet
Not a Blank Check, Baltimore Sun
Who Cares What the Terrorists Want?, Philadelphia Daily News

Blog Entries by Ari Melber

Surveillance Protest Group Now Tops Obama Website

19 Comments | Posted July 2, 2008 | 10:11 AM (EST)


So a grassroots group of activists has been organizing on MyBo, Obama's official social networking portal, to protest the Senator's recent decision to back controversial legislation granting the president more spying powers. The effort hit a big milestone on Tuesday afternoon: It is now the largest self-organized group on...

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Yes We Can Talk About McCain's Service

37 Comments | Posted July 1, 2008 | 10:21 AM (EST)


Wes Clark stood by his criticism of John McCain in a television interview last night, stressing that while he would "never, never dis someone's service," it is legitimate to discuss what types of military experience are relevant to being commander in chief. Republicans have been twisting Clark's mundane...

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Obama Network Organizes and Revolts Over Spying

135 Comments | Posted June 30, 2008 | 01:28 AM (EST)


Barack Obama tapped his sizeable grassroots network on Saturday, coordinating over 4,000 "Unite for Change" meetups across the country through the campaign's social networking portal, MyBo. At the same time, however, other supporters worked furiously over the weekend to organize a new MyBo campaign to protest and pressure...

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Obama Silent as Democrats Give Bush More Spying Powers

237 Comments | Posted June 20, 2008 | 12:08 AM (EST)


Democratic leaders in Congress are poised to grant new spying powers to President Bush and arrange retroactive amnesty for telecommunications companies accused of illegal surveillance, according to a deal announced Thursday evening. Today's New York Times describes the legislation, which the House could vote on today, as "the...

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Why President Obama Could Lose Ohio & Florida

16 Comments | Posted June 19, 2008 | 10:00 AM (EST)


With his trademark white board on hand, the late Tim Russert presciently declared that the 2000 election came down to "Florida, Florida, Florida." As the country mourns the passing of a beloved newsman, it seems fitting to consider the 2008 race in Russert's parlance. So forget Florida and Ohio --...

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Obama v. Fox v. Murdoch

16 Comments | Posted June 11, 2008 | 10:00 AM (EST)


So Fox's E.D. Hill has backtracked from her attempt to smear Barack Obama's victory dap, after public protest, media ridicule and, most importantly, quick pushback from her bosses. Today the Times reports that Hill's attack on Obama drew "anger from the Fox News executive suite." Maybe she...

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White Male Pundit Power

17 Comments | Posted June 9, 2008 | 01:21 AM (EST)



Ari Melber discusses this issue on NPR's Bryant Park show on Wednesday, June 11. AUDIO LINK.

It's still all about the white men.

Hillary Clinton's loss has renewed critiques that American political media is slanted, sexist and dominated by men. While Clinton and Obama...

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McCain Launches New Blog, Links to Kos

21 Comments | Posted June 6, 2008 | 08:13 PM (EST)


John McCain's campaign launched a spiffy new blog on Friday, stepping up an effort to catch up to Barack Obama's web dominance. McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds sent reporters a statement hitting several Internet priorities:

The blog will offer a fresh perspective and will include quotes, the candidate's schedule...

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Ickes: Obama and Clinton Can't Win

33 Comments | Posted June 5, 2008 | 12:27 AM (EST)


Even as Hillary Clinton and her aides begin the official effort to rally around Barack Obama, the Republican National Committee (RNC) is circulating past attacks on Obama from the Clinton Campaign. Is this the cost of the long, sharp primary that worried so many Democrats? A new RNC press...

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Media Doesn't Love Obama After All

Posted June 2, 2008 | 12:41 AM (EST)


Barack Obama has not received better media coverage than Hillary Clinton, according to a new study by the research team at Pew/Harvard, the gold standard in nonpartisan media analysis. After reviewing coverage from January to March, when the majority of states voted, researchers determined that Obama simply did...

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Is McCain's Appeal Doomed?

Posted May 27, 2008 | 09:10 AM (EST)


John McCain must be special.

Republicans are getting thrashed in conservative districts from Illinois to Mississippi to Louisiana. When pollsters offer a generic ballot, voters say they prefer a Democratic presidential candidate by a staggering 15 points. Yet McCain is tied with or barely behind likely Democratic presidential...

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Fox Focus Groups in Your Face

Posted May 19, 2008 | 11:11 PM (EST)


Frank Luntz's polling keeps getting weirder.

On Fox News this weekend, Bill Bradley addressed a focus group of undecided voters while Luntz collected their live reactions on his "Instant Response" dials. And the results were instantaneously graphed across Bradley's head as he spoke.

The absurd presentation was...

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Web Journalist Says Web is Destroying Journalism

Posted May 16, 2008 | 03:49 PM (EST)


The Internet is destroying journalism, according to Internet journalist Joshua Micah Marshall, the award-winning founder of TalkingPointsMemo (TPM). In a Friday speech at a Harvard conference on the future of the web, Marshall said traditional reporters are "terrorized" by economic and competitive challenges, living with a mix of...

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Key Voting Blocs Boost Obama in Indiana

Posted May 6, 2008 | 09:21 PM (EST)


So Barack Obama is back. The results on Tuesday did not provide the "game changer" Hillary Clinton so desperately needed. Instead, Obama built on his leads in delegates and the popular vote. His aides pointed to May 20 as the day when he will clinch a majority of elected delegates,...

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The Responsible Plan vs. Phony Moderates

Posted May 1, 2008 | 11:33 AM (EST)


Anti-war strategists have long said the Democrats' road to Washington runs through Baghdad. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the party's only winning election came in 2006 -- the first time Democrats ran clearly against the war. That won't cut it this year, though, since voters saw the new Congress...

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Clinton and Obama Finally Slam Pentagon Propaganda; McCain Silent

Posted April 28, 2008 | 01:54 PM (EST)


Hillary Clinton's campaign finally came out against the Bush administration's secret program to promote Iraq policy through television analysts on Monday, saying it raises questions of "credibility and trust at the Pentagon" and calling for an Inspector General investigation, in a statement provided to The Nation. The program,...

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PBS Breaks Media Blackout of Pentagon Propaganda Bombshell

Posted April 25, 2008 | 12:03 PM (EST)


While most TV news organizations have refused to report or even comment on the bombshell Times article exposing a secret Pentagon propaganda campaign to sell Iraq policy, PBS just aired an important segment on the controversy. PBS' Judy Woodruff kicked off the debate with a disturbing summary...

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Pennsylvania Democrats for McCain!

Posted April 23, 2008 | 12:41 AM (EST)


Read more reactions from Huffington Post bloggers to the Pennsylvania Primary

Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania, but many Democratic primary voters say they'll vote for McCain in November.

So get ready for lots of chatter about this PA exit polling from Tuesday:

In a Clinton-McCain race,...

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Mark Halperin & The Real Elitist Problem

Posted April 21, 2008 | 03:14 PM (EST)


Today the Times' Brian Stelter profiles Mark Halperin and his web invention The Page, a "concise collection of up-to-the-minute political news" that has come to drive "the political agenda." The positive article credits Halperin's business acumen, since he built a bloggy tip-sheet from scratch that cuts through the political...

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Pentagon Propaganda & Antiwar Analysts (Updated)

Posted April 21, 2008 | 12:09 AM (EST)


The Sunday Times' article detailing the massive, secret coordinated campaign by the Pentagon and all the leading television news channels to sell and defend the administration's Iraq policy is a critical piece of investigative journalism. David Barstow provided meticulous and aggressive reporting, even referencing how The Times'amplified Pentagon...

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