by Taylor Marsh

The stunning interview on CNN featuring Jackson spokesperson Brian Oxman reveals where this story is headed. But as important as it is to tell the whole story of Michael...

by Taylor Marsh

In the midst of the martyrdom of Neda, which has moved the world, it's good to remember that there is a very human quotient to what's playing out before our eyes. That was made clear yesterday.

It was...

by Taylor Marsh

Have you noticed it? Pres. Obama is being called "weak" on Iran. John McCain started it; all that was missing was "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" in the background. Turn on Fox...

If you venture over to the State Department's DipNote blog, as of a few minutes ago (12:39 p.m. eastern), the lead post is entitled "Coercion in a Time of Crisis." Before you get your hopes up, it's not about Iran.

In fact, at DipNote, the Iran election didn't happen....

Kenneth Ballen and Patrick Dougherty have written an op-ed stating that the election results actually manifest what they revealed in their independent pre-election polling. I was at the event where their data was released.

Allegations of fraud and electoral manipulation will serve to further isolate Iran and are likely...

by Taylor Marsh

Earlier this week I was at an event at the New America Foundation revealing the latest polling on Iranian public opinion as relates to the election tomorrow. As I do...

We're new to the D.C. area. So when we started paying attention to the Virginia governors race it was late in the game. But it didn't take long for my blue collar husband to take sides. I haven't,...

"Culturally sensitive" is how Bob Shrum judged Pres. Obama's historic speech in Cairo, as he pronounced "a new beginning," which was the foundation of his speech.

I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon...

by Taylor Marsh

Updated below

Today on Women on the Web, an interview about "Pro-Life Feminism" takes a walk through the feminism debate. The irony that it appears the day after a "pro-life" right wing fanatic murders a women's health care doctor is not missed, though it is...

This is rich. John Yoo slamming Pres. Obama and Judge Sotomayor, claiming excellence has been sacrificed through her nomination. Who says irony is dead?

President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor shows that empathy has won out over excellence in the White House. ... The White House chose...

by Taylor Marsh

At the end it says "Democrats Galore." Imposed with a naked woman behind the tag line. Get it? Subtle it is not. But check out the video...

by Taylor Marsh

Tacky. Tacky. Tacky.

That's Brian Moran.

For those of you who don't know, he's running in the Virginia gubernatorial primary against Terry McAuliffe and state Sen. Creigh Deeds. Moran is...

by Taylor Marsh

What motivates Dick Cheney?

It's not what people think, though Mr. Cheney should be worried about his role in U.S. torture policy, even if he'll likely never be held to account. So, it's not that. Though we may get the "holy grail" evidence Cheney keeps talking about soon. What Cheney, Dick or Liz, won't talk about is the detainee who gave false information (under Egyptian torture) that sent us to war in Iraq, and disgraced Colin Powell. Because Al-Libi just committed suicide in a Libyan prison.

If we get hit again it's going to be blamed on torture, Rush said on his show yesterday.

So why is Dick Cheney on this media tour?

Mr. Cheney wants to draw a line in the sand where Pres. Obama began dismantling the torture policies of Bush-Cheney, which Cheney postulates is making us "less safe."

"That means, in the future, we will not have the same safeguards..." - Vice President Dick Cheney

Cheney knows that we will be hit at some moment in the future, something experts have said is inevitable, whether it's before Obama is out of office or not isn't the issue. Cheney's bet is that when this happens the legacy of Bush-Cheney must be solidified as the Administration who after 9/11 "kept us safe." He wants Americans to remember the moment those policies were dismantled. It happened on the Democrats' watch.

Mr. Cheney along with his fan club, headed by Rush Limbaugh, is betting that the American people need to be reminded of who kept us safe and when those safety policies were destroyed, believing that Americans won't care about torture anymore when the next attack lands.

Nothing Dick Cheney does is by accident. This is a calculated plan to weave a narrative before it happens into the political blood stream, with the attempt of casting blame in advance. Call it preemptive marketing.

It's the same tactic with a new twist, with Cheney finding a new line of attack on the old standard that Democrats are weak on national security. Considering what Bush-Cheney has cost us internationally this takes incredible gall. But when you think of how low Dick Cheney is thought of in this country, what has he got to lose? Since the Obama administration doesn't have the stomach to do anything about what has gone before, the answer is nothing. Considering the Cheneys are the strongest advocates on TV today for a policy that should have us all hanging our heads in shame, it makes you wonder who's really in power.

So, even as Cheney draws a line that he believes will eventually lead the Republicans back to power, Cheney's cynical bet that Obama and the Democrats will be blamed is one he's more than willing to let ride.

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by Taylor Marsh

I wonder how many people are depressed that President Obama and Secretary Clinton are not only getting along, but the boss is showing his game while his Secretary of State is doing a little of that on her own. It wasn't supposed to be this...

by Taylor Marsh

This is going to be gratifying for Democrats, while only adding to Republican depression. The one real issue in question being Obama's resolve and his willingness to confront. One review says the window is the auto crisis....

by Taylor Marsh

Soldiers do it every day.

But to save the tenets on which this country was founded, for which we have always stood and U.S. soldiers die every day, are we willing to do the same?

It is being called "a perfect storm of ignorance...

The Shiite feminists in Afghanistan won this one for themselves. Can we even use "Shiite" and "feminist" in the same phrase? Well, for this occasion we will, though the labeling hardly matters.

They took to the streets yesterday, standing in front of the madrassa run by Shiite cleric Ayatollah Asif...

One small step for the rabble-rousers.

President Karzai underestimated the global attention that legalizing rape in Afghanistan would cause. Karzai's rape law has now been put on hold. Being a signatore of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights means something. Especially...

by Taylor Marsh

After what happened in the Swat region, this was easily foreseen, especially with President Karzai's popularity plummeting and an election on the horizon. The Independent's article today also throws a shadow, maybe even complications, across Obama's Afghanistan strategy. From The Independent:

... Critics claim...

It might have been fun, but was it right?

It's also not the real nut of the issue: Federal Reserve officials knew for months about bonuses at American International Group but failed to tell...