First the House GOP borrowed Effexor's slogan, now John McCain seems to be absconding with Barack Obama's. His Mc-stradamus act (by way of Edward Bellamy) yesterday was the very definition of the audacity of hope.

As in he hopes that within four years of taking office, the Iraq...

Today's NYT looks at Karl Rove's new role as multi-media bloviator. It hits many of the expected notes, including the question of whether his advice to the McCain campaign qualifies him as an "adviser."

More broadly the piece uses Rove as the illustrative example of a trend in journalism...

Let's see.

John McCain said that Barack Obama is the candidate from Hamas.

Barack Obama said the comment was a sign that McCain is "losing his bearings as he pursues the nomination."

Which is more straightforward: That McCain was saying terrorists like Obama, or that Obama was saying that...

With the last chances of winning the Democratic nomination slipping away, the question increasingly arises whether Hillary Clinton should hope for the number two spot.

The answer is a clear yes.

I am a big fan of Josh Marshall and Talking Points Memo and often agree with him,...

In case you missed the 10 minutes of live coverage it got on the cable "news" networks today, John McCain gave a speech on his judicial philosophy. Sadly, as I explain over at Robert Emmet, it seems to have been lifted whole from every other GOP speech touching on...

So Tom Hanks has endorsed Barack Obama, comparing him -- according to the clip I just saw on Hardball -- with FDR, HST, JFK and RWR (that last would be Ronald Reagan -- apparently the Dems have the monopoly on names that can be reduced to catchy three-letter-initials, though...

Words do matter and few presidents knew this better than JFK (who of course also understood that rhetorical power has its limits).

How JFK came up with his memorable words and why they matter -- from "ask not" to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- is the subject of

What a week.

There were book parties.

Then there was the Daily Show on Wednesday night discussing White House Ghostsx-- quite the charge. I blogged about the experience over at Robert Emmet.

And...

Watching the bloviators discuss Obama's denunciation of Jeremy Wright today I was struck by how much discussion was devoted to whether this would make the Wright issue go away.

It will not, of course -- neither the Republicans nor the reverend figure to let it go -- but Obama turned...

Straight up, Hillary Clinton won tonight, and don't let the expectations-talk fool you.

As I explain over at Robert Emmet, the talking heads are taking the wrong approach to viewing Mrs. Clinton's Pennsylvania win: The only way she gets the nomination is by way of a historic Obama collapse....

Forget tonight's Pennsylvania primary -- ultimately it's much ado about little -- but think ahead to the Keystone State's 2010 senate race. According to Pennsylvania reporter Jacqueline Policastro, it could include Hardball maestro Chris Matthews:

Chris Matthews, host of Hardball on MSNBC, could be our next...

I regret never having met Robert Hartmann, the close aide to Gerald Ford who died last week -- he was one of the classic, colorful characters in White House history.

Hartmann was Ford's vice presidential chief of staff, and became a "counselor" when Ford moved into the Oval Office...

A president owns his words, but he does not always know where he got them.

Such was the with George W. Bush and one of the best-remembered phrases from his September 20, 2001 speech to Congress, as I detail in my new book White House Ghosts (which got its...

It's a strange thing, reading your first book review.

I decided in late 2004 to write a book, collecting the funny, illuminating and generally entertaining stories of presidential speechwriters. Over three years I interviewed more than 90 current and former presidential ghosts; I collected and pored over tens of thousands...

For all the talk of a Democratic senate surge that would carry them to a filibuster-proof majority, the more plausible scenario is an election that leaves them short but with a relatively comfortable majority. And it will raise the question: What about Joe Lieberman?

Currently Democrats hold 49 seats,...

It seems the Democrats have, for the time being, coalesced around a skeptical position regarding free trade. How long will it last? We'll see.

The trade debate called to mind a much earlier presidential campaign, and a classical moment in presidential speechwriting. Running for president in 1932, Franklin Roosevelt...

Were the superdelegates to nominate Hillary Clinton, despite Barack Obama gaining a plurality among the pledged delegates, they would run the risk of alienating black voters in November.

But what exactly would that mean? In how many states do black voters make the difference? I ran some rough numbers over...

I've been asked a lot of question recently about the relative oratorical skills of the presidential candidates (having just written a book on presidents and their speechwriters, I have become something of an expert).

Obama is easy of course: a rare talent, evoking a classic style of political speechgiving...

Forty years ago tonight, Lyndon B. Johnson stopped bombing Vietnam long enough to drop a big one on the U.S. political landscape.

The issue of course was Vietnam. (Or as we might call it now, Pre-raq.)

His speech to the nation on the evening of March 31, 1968 is best...

I've argued for some time that Hillary Clinton is almost certain to lose the Democratic presidential nomination -- but I am not in the "Hillary should drop out" camp.

Sen. Pat Leahy, the veteran Democratic Vermonter, yesterday became the latest to call for Mrs. Clinton's withdrawal from the race....