Ryan Lizza’s in-depth look at Barack Obama’s political career in Illinois for the New Yorker has something for most everyone — right and left — to chew over. Folks right of center seem to be focusing first on Obama’s response to the 9/11 attacks, published on September 19th in the Hyde Park Herald: Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved families, I must also hope

Why is it an empty gesture? U.S. President George W. Bush plans to lift a ban on offshore drilling on Monday to combat soaring energy prices, a largely symbolic move unlikely to have any short-term impact on the high cost of gasoline. Because it’s not a short-term solution.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s Foreign Ministry has condemned remarks by Republican presidential candidate John McCain that exporting cigarettes could be a way of killing Iranians. The state-owned English language IRAN daily has quoted ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini denouncing the remarks as “inappropriate” and describing McCain’s attitude as “regretful.” Last week, McCain was asked about an Associated Press report that the U.S. exported $158 million worth of cigarettes to

Barack Obama has an op-ed in today’s New York Times, titled “My Plan for Iraq.”  It is an odd title, considering that Obama uses the space to write about almost everything except about his plan for Iraq. Rather, Obama reminds us that he opposed the war in Iraq before it began, ignoring that his stated objections at the time were vacuous and not borne out by subsequent events.  He claims that nearly every threat we face

about the GWoT.  Fail: The differences on Iraq in this campaign are deep. Unlike Senator John McCain, I opposed the war in Iraq before it began, and would end it as president. I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the

Camp Obama is upset with the new New Yorker cover that depicts the Obamas as fist-bumping terrorists: Spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement: “The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.” McCain spokesman