Can Jane Hamsher or Howard Dean be wrong on the substance of policy issues? Of course!!! I don't think they often are, but recently there have been many progressives who have thought so. These were reasonable disagreements and everyone was within their full right to think Dean or Hamsher might...

There are many debates among progressives now on the true nature of Barack Obama. Did he mean anything he said on the campaign trail? Is he really a progressive? Did he ever mean to challenge the status quo or was he using the word "change" as a campaign gimmick? Is...

People who support the latest version of the health care reform bill can't understand why progressives have been flipping out over the public option. By the end, it was so compromised that it covered a minuscule portion of the population, its cost controls were significantly reduced and it was a...

You only need 51 senators to pass a bill through reconciliation. But theoretically the main problem with reconciliation is that it can only be used for legislation that affects the budget. So, a public option or Medicare buy-in would definitely affect the budget, but getting rid of insurance practices like...

The man who said he was going to challenge the system, fight corporate lobbyists and change the system now appears to be fighting for the status quo and corporate America at every turn. I call the Republican Party a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America, but now Barack Obama is...

From time to time, I'll get into a debate with a right-winger about whether Sarah Palin is actually stupid or if liberals are just hopelessly biased against her. They claim this bias comes from the fact that liberals are scared of her electability, her charm, her looks, her femininity,...

I had large misgivings about Ben Bernanke before his hearings began. He's given credit for steering our economy to safe shores after we hit an enormous economic iceberg. First, I would argue we are nowhere near safe shores. Second, why are we rehiring the guy who steered the Titanic into...

Until about a month ago, I agreed with Barack Obama's strategy in Afghanistan. I thought we should have concentrated on Afghanistan from the beginning. We should have brought in so many more troops. We owed it to the Afghan people to do the best we could for them since we...

Everyone's heard it a hundred times by now. Joe Biden said it when he was on The Daily Show last week. Tim Geithner says it every time he's on television or in a congressional hearing or in the car talking to himself. "We had to do the bailout. We didn't...

A new poll by Public Policy Polling shows that 52% of Republicans believe that Obama did not really win the 2008 election. You think that's absurd, get a load of why -- ACORN stole it for him. Yes, a majority of Republicans in the country believe ACORN flat out...

I was talking to Frank Mankiewicz recently (he was the press secretary for Bobby Kennedy and campaign manager for George McGovern) and I asked him what's the difference between the right-wing in this country back in the 60s and 70s and right now. Certainly there were crazed conservatives back then,...

Predictably, after the Ft. Hood shooting some idiot conservatives are suggesting that we do some sort of loyalty exam for Muslim-Americans before allowing them into the US military. Who is "we"? Who gets to do this exam? What, presumably more American people like whites or Christians?

To paraphrase Eminem, "Will the real Barack Obama please stand up? Please stand up?" That is the central question of our time -- who is the real Barack Obama?

If he's the guy who got us all excited that anyone could become president, that anything was possible, that real change...

The trigger is a lie. And anyone who advocates the trigger is a liar.

Did you know that the 2003 Medicare prescription drug legislation had a trigger? Well, drug costs have continued to rise significantly ever since then - and guess what, it turns out the public provision in there...

Is there really any doubt in anyone's mind that Fox has been attacking Obama from day one? Can anyone really be that misinformed or disingenuous? Well, if you are, this video from Media Matters will disabuse you of that notion:

There are three categories of news media:

1. Opinion Outlets

•Keith Olbermann
•Bill O'Reilly
•The Young Turks
•Wall Street Journal Editorial Side

2. Partisan Press (Ideologically Driven Press)

•The Nation
•Fox News Channel
•National Review
•Mother Jones
•Drudge Report

3. Straight News

Right now, there is a debate as to what President Obama should do in Afghanistan. As there should be. Should he send in more troops? Does it make sense to escalate the war without a viable partner in the Afghan government? Will this be his Vietnam? Woh, woh, woh...

I think they gave this Nobel peace prize to Obama less because of what he's done so far and more for not being Bush. And it's well deserved.

Conservatives seemed to be outraged that this is partly a snub of Bush. Yes, it is. And well deserved.

Bush was a...

It's not the answer that matters, it's the question. So when Alan Grayson suggested that the Republican's health care plan was for people to die quickly, he began a conversation that the Democratic Party couldn't lose and the Republicans couldn't win. Because then the question being debated was: Do Republicans...

It has always been thus. Now comes round two.

In the first round, Rahm Emanuel and Howard Dean butted heads on what strategy was best in regaining House seats in 2006 (also to some degree in 2008). Emanuel was chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Howard Dean...