With each passing day -- and each bellicose, over-the-top, spittle-enhanced pronouncement -- Rudy Giuliani is revealing that he has the soul of a thug and the disposition of a tyrant.
So, is waterboarding a deal-breaker? It clearly is for Chris Dodd, Patrick Leahy, and the other senators who vowed to vote no on the Mukasey nomination due to his refusal to say whether the controversial torture technique is illegal. But the AG designate's unwillingness was apparently not enough to dissuade Judiciary Committee members Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, whose support virtually guarantees Mukasey's confirmation. In announcing her decision, DiFi delivered the week's lamest endorsement. "First and foremost," she said, "Michael Mukasey is not Alberto Gonzales." Wow, with credentials like that, how could you not make him America's top cop? Bush defended Mukasey's waterboard waffling, saying "he had not been briefed" on the technique. Allow us: Kaj Larsen blogs about having himself waterboarded for Mukasey's edification.
With only 24 percent of Americans thinking the country is on the right track, the behavior of the leading GOP presidential candidates is utterly befuddling.
As part of the Atlantic Monthly's 150th anniversary celebration, and for reasons that are still unclear, they have asked me to offer up my take on "the American idea" in the form of a haiku.
I'm excited to report that 23/6, the satiric news and opinion site HuffPost has been developing with IAC/InterActiveCorp, is now live. Check it out here.
Campaigning in Iowa this week, Bill Clinton told voters they should blame him, not Hillary, for the1993 health care debacle. Putting aside the fact that Hillary has already owned up to her role in the political fiasco, is it really smart to have him stepping in front of her to take the hit for Team Clinton? It may be gallant for a husband to tell friends that the reason he and his wife are an hour late for a dinner party is because he got lost when, in fact, it's because she couldn't decide what to wear. But Hillary isn't running for Favorite Guest, she's running to be President of the United States -- a would-be Commander-in-Chief, not a little woman who needs to be protected by her big, strong man.
People who are brash and profane and radical are often assumed to be anti-God, but this was certainly not the case with Mailer. He aggressively believed in God, reincarnation, and an afterlife.
Award-winning ad exec Rich Silverstein has created three powerful posters that simply but graphically capture the lunacy of the modern GOP. 
PU-239 is a film that works on many levels. It's a thriller, a pitch black comedy, a cautionary tale, a damning portrayal of post-Soviet Russia, and a tender, tragic salute to fatherhood.
It was a volatile week. John McCain exploded with laughter when a woman in Iowa referred to Hillary as a bitch (Amazingly, instead of apologizing, McCain tried to raise money off the incident). Tom Tancredo took fear-mongering to a new low with ominous campaign ads featuring exploding backpacks in America's malls. And Judith Regan stunned the political/media world with her $100 million lawsuit alleging she was asked by an unnamed senior NewsCorp exec to lie to federal investigators about one-time lover and Giuliani ticking time bomb Bernie "Bada-Bing" Kerik. The smart money is on that unnamed exec turning out to be Roger Ailes, who now solidifies his rep as the Dark Lord Voldermort of NewsCorp: He Who Must Not be Named. Even by Regan, clearly no pushover in the pushback department.
HuffPost's OffTheBus has decided to launch "The Polling Project," a wide-ranging effort to scrutinize an industry devoted to scrutinizing us. And we need your help.
Reintegrating the spiritual and the everyday is the key to fearlessness. But ending this division is not easy.
Watching the growing uproar over McClellan's revelation that Bush, Cheney, Rove, and Libby had sent him out on a mission to deceive the American people, I am reminded of one of my favorite tidbits to come out of Plamegate.
Happy Thanksgiving. As has become a HuffPost Thanksgiving Day tradition, our bloggers are serving up a cornucopia of tasty takes on the holiday -- from reflections on what they are thankful for this year to favorite Thanksgiving recipes (check out some of the ones you sent in response to Nora Ephron's post). As for me, right now I'm most grateful for my two teenage daughters, and the fact that, thanks to Dr. Rock Positano (now a HuffPost blogger), my broken ankle has healed and I no longer need a cane to get around. And I'm also thankful that we are only 14 months away from having a new occupant of the Oval Office, and for all the members of our HuffPost community -- staff members, bloggers, commenters, and users -- who've helped make the last two and a half years such an exciting and joyful ride.
Happy Sandwich Day -- aka the Day After Thanksgiving. As you prepare your turkey sandwiches, left-over yams, and thank-god-there's-still-a-slice-left pumpkin pie (and promise yourself you'll start working off the holiday bloat right after you finish eating), our HuffPost bloggers have one more item for the menu: food for thought. Their takes on what we have to be grateful for, and where we can do better. So belly up to the blog. In the meantime, we can't let the moment pass without mentioning the week's biggest turkey, Scott McClellan, who joins that long line of former Bush administration officials who only feel compelled to come clean when it might boost book sales, not when it might rescue the country. Gobble, gobble, Scottie.
This week, New Hampshire officially moved its first-in-the-nation primary to January 8, the earliest date in the state's history. With the Iowa caucuses set for January 3, presidential hopefuls will no doubt be feverishly campaigning throughout the holiday season, raising the unholy specter of a time usually devoted to goodwill toward men being dominated by the muck-raking of a tight race. Will it all bleed together? I can just picture yuletide TV classics taking on a distinctly different air: "Sure, Frosty the Snowman is a jolly, happy soul, but is he the kind of leader who will melt under pressure?" "George Bailey makes lots of promises, but when push came to shove he never did lasso the moon, did he?" It could be a very long 39 days.
Instead of actual political progress the new goal in Iraq is convincing everyone political progress is being made. Read More Fear of Faith Without faith in a higher order and the existence of something outside ourselves and our everyday lives, life can become emotionally unbearable and filled with fear. Read More Karl Rove's Shameless, Remorseless, Soulless Attempt to Rewrite History Rove now claims that the White House had been "opposed" to holding the Iraq war vote just prior to the 2002 elections because "we thought it made it too political." Too political? For Karl Rove? That's like saying something was too bloody for Count Dracula. Read More
In the twentieth century, the response to fear-filled religiosity has been atheism and fear-filled alienation from all things spiritual. Alienation ma...
Rove now claims that the White House had been "opposed" to holding the Iraq war vote just prior to the 2002 elections because "we thought it made it too political." Too political? For Karl Rove?
