Former tabloid big Bonnie Fuller notes that Camp Obama is using popular mass-media vehicles such as People, Us Weekly, The View, Access Hollywood and The Colbert Report to “present Michelle and Barack as the beloved Brangelina of the political world.”  Regular pw readers will recall that Dan and I took note of the Us Weekly cover. This strategy is worth viewing in the context of Jay Cost’s argument that the portrayal of Obama as a Messiaianic

Those are the analogies of the new ad for Mr. Hopeyness from MoveOn, which is spending $150,000 to air the ad on MTV and Comedy Central, according to a spokesman. Reportedly, the success of Comedy Central’s flagship Daily Show is based on the idea of “funny because it’s true.”  The ad seems like a natural fit.  At the very least, it is closer to the truth than MoveOn’s “General Betray Us” ad.  No wonder

Although it looks like Human Events broke the story, the Chicago Sun-Times has more details (so consider this an update to Dan’s post): Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak said today he has been diagnosed with a brain tumor but says that, “God willing,” he plans to be back at work soon. Novak said he was diagnosed Sunday with a tumor and will soon begin treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Robert Novak was admitted yesterday to a Boston hospital where he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  In a written statement given to his publisher, Novak said: “On Sunday, July 27, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  I have been admitted to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where doctors will soon begin appropriate treatment. “I will be suspending my journalistic work for an indefinite but, God willing, not

The Wall Street Journal editorial board notices that Big Labor is oppressing the proletariat — and they are not the only ones noticing: The mighty Service Employees International Union (SEIU) plans to spend some $150 million in this year’s election, most of it to get Barack Obama and other Democrats elected. Where’d they get that much money? That’s a question the Departments of Labor and Justice are being asked to

If I live to be 80, I’d like think I’d be in a bar and if someone asked for requests from the music server, I would say something like, “Play some Metallica, you pussies.”  I might throw in a few muttered “damn punks” and “frelling kids” just to round out my curmudgeonly display.

There had been in the back of my brain this nagging sense that I recalled an analogue to Obamamania earlier in life, but I couldn’t recall what it was.  On the way to work today, I realized it was Haile Selassie I.  I don’t really know much about the man, but I recall his posture as a head of state during my childhood, and I knew that he was a religious

From Out & About, a gay-oriented newspaper, comes their version of the terrible tragedy wrought by an anti-Christian gunman at a Knoxville church.  The death toll has now reached two. Out & About’s story recasts this as a possible anti-gay hate crime because the church in question was “gay affirming.”  Among other details, we learn that the church had recently put up a sign specifically inviting gays to become parishioners, and

RCP’s Jay Cost notes (as noted here) that John McCain’s campaign still seems like a pudding without a theme, but also argues that Barack Obama’s campaign “is built around a faulty, occasionally absurd meta-narrative”: Obama’s narrative should be similar to [Bill] Clinton’s [i.e., generational change can invigorate a tired government and grow a sagging economy]. It’s tailor-made for a year like this and a man like Obama. But that is not the

Even following his World Tour, Barack Obama is sticking by his opposition to the “surge” of roops to quell violence in Iraq.  He has consistently argued that the addition of troops would take the pressure off of the Iraqis to reach the political accomodation necessary to stability in the long term. At the same time, Obama is advocating a surge of troops into Afghanistan.  He is doing so despite his own opinion