Free Republic

The surging Newt Gingrich has mastered debates — and disguise. The debate part is clear: The former Speaker of the House comes to play and owns the stage with an uncanny capacity to connect with the grievances of conservative voters. The disguise part is clear, too. Gingrich has used his debate skills — and his instinct to hit the raw nerves of conservatives — to camouflage considerable weaknesses as a candidate. The three wives, and cheating on and leaving the first two while they were ill; inconsistency on the most consequential conservative causes of the past decade; episodic bouts of...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Let's go to the audio sound bites, because Nancy Pelosi has opened her cavity. Two things. Pelosi's out there saying, (paraphrasing) "We don't really have that much to do with Occupy Wall Street. No, no, no. We're not tied to that group." So that's not gonna make them happy and it's a clear indication that the Democrat calculation is that the Occupy crowd is a drag on 'em. Then Pelosi, at a Politico Playbook Breakfast yesterday, was interviewed by White House correspondent Mike Allen, who said, "You think the Republican right is intentionally digging in, assuming a...

With not one Republican primary vote cast yet, we're getting way ahead of ourselves by speculating about whom Mitt Romney might pick as his vice-presidential running mate. But Willie Geist did invite Politico's Mike Allen to make his "bold predictions" for 2012. And Allen delivered, prognosticating that Romney would pick Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman as his ticket-mate. Mark Halperin strongly seconded Allen's assertion. View the video here.

Was this sober political analysis, or merely an MSMer pining for the good old days of Speaker Pelosi? On Morning Joe today, touting a Politico Pelosi puff piece about her "golden touch," Mike Allen claimed it was "very possible" that Democrats would retake the House majority in 2012. View the video here.

How does the liberal media turn a positive for a Republican front-runner into a negative? Ask Mike Allen of Politico. Instead of focusing on the political pluses of Chris Christie's endorsement of Mitt Romney, Allen has twisted the event into a negative that revealed the "very ruthless" efficiency of the Romney campaign. Moreover, if there's a politician around today who thinks for himself, it's Christie. Yet Allen insinuated that rather than making a reasoned decision, Christie was "roped" into endorsing Romney. Allen made his sour-grape remarks on today's Morning Joe. View the video here.

One more data point demonstrating the leftward tilt of the purportedly non-partisan Politico: In his Playbook of today, Politico's chief White House correspondent Mike Allen depicts a "grand bargain" on the credit ceiling, which inevitably would include huge tax increases, as an "historic achievement" for which President Obama and House speaker John Boehner would "rightly get credit." In contrast, Allen suggests that Republican leaders Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy are refusing a grand bargain out of personal political ambition. Read more here.

Mike Allen, appearing on Morning Joe, November 23, 2010.

. . . Present among the bloggers, reporters and editors were a number of professional political operatives, including top White House economic advisors, key Obama political appointees, and Democratic campaign veterans . . . Two of the administration’s chief economic advisors, Jared Bernstein, the vice president’s top economist, and Jason Furman, deputy director of the National Economic Council, were members of Journolist until they began working officially for Obama. Ilan Goldenberg, now an advisor on Middle East policy at the Pentagon, was a member until he joined the administration. Moira Whelan left Journolist to work at the Department of Homeland...

The now closed down JournoList, has caused considerable controversy in recent weeks. According to its opponents, JournoList, teamed up some 400 prominent "progressive" journalists in an effort to smooth Barack Obama's path to the White House. There have been accusations that "Journolitstas", deliberately sought to downplay Obama's association with the marxist Rev. Jeremiah Wright and tried to smear conservatives, or opposing journalists as "racists". This post looks at 106 reported "Journolistas" to look for connections or common threads. Of the known "Jounolistas" and organizations listed below, many can be linked back to two interrelated groups Democratic Socialists of America, the...

Spencer Ackerman - Wired, FireDogLake, Washington Independent, Talking Points Memo, The American Prospect Thomas Adcock - New York Law Journal Ben Adler - Newsweek, POLITICO Mike Allen - POLITICO Eric Alterman - The Nation, Media Matters for America Marc Ambinder - The Atlantic Greg Anrig - The Century Foundation Ryan Avent - Economist Dean Baker - The American Prospect Nick Baumann - Mother Jones Josh Bearman - LA Weekly Steven Benen - The Carpetbagger Report Ari Berman - The Nation Jared Bernstein - Economic Policy Institute Michael Berube - Crooked Timer, Pennsylvania State University Brian Beutler - The Media...

The following 65 names are confirmed members of the now-defunct JournoList listserv. 1. Ezra Klein 2. Dave Weigel 3. Matthew Yglesias 4. David Dayen 5. Spencer Ackerman 6. Jeffrey Toobin 7. Eric Alterman 8. Paul Krugman 9. John Judis 10. Eve Fairbanks 11. Mike Allen 12. Ben Smith 13. Lisa Lerer 14. Joe Klein 15. Brad DeLong 16. Chris Hayes 17. Matt Duss 18. Jonathan Chait 19. Jesse Singal 20. Michael Cohen 21. Isaac Chotiner 22. Katha Pollitt 23. Alyssa Rosenberg 24. Rick Perlstein 25. Alex Rossmiller 26. Ed Kilgore 27. Walter Shapiro 28. Noam Scheiber 29. Michael Tomasky 30....

Mike Allen, chief political correspondent, POLITICO: "We saw the President in the Oval Office using commander-in-chief language, asking the country to think big, talking about his battle plan, talking about how he's informing not asking BP what's going to happen about how he refuses to let the Gulf Coast suffer anymore than it has to. This was a chance for the President to say I'm in charge, I get it and we have a plan to make this better."

Enraged voters, too dumb to appreciate the purveyors of pork . . . That was Mike Allen's complaint on Morning Joe today. Politico's chief political correspondent labelled "absurd" the decision of Utah and Nevada voters not to re-elect Bob Bennett [done deal] and Harry Reid [likely goner]. And why is it such a bad mistake? Because Bennett and Reid are proven pork providers for their states. Allen offered his analysis in response to Mike Barnicle's suggestion that in the current political climate, bringing home the bacon might actually backfire on politicians. View video here.

When you're an MSMer, you're an MSMer all the way--even when faced with facts that might make you like, well, ridiculous . . . Mike Allen, appearing on Morning Joe, has declared the NY-23rd race a "real toss-up" despite a new poll from a respected organization showing Doug Hoffman with a 17-point lead. The claim by Allen, Politico's chief political correspondent's, was so absurd that, on the spot, host Joe Scarborough offered 3:1 odds to Allen and anyone else wanting to place a few kopeks on Dem Bill Owens. View video here.

Mike Allen has tried to throw a bucket of cold water on Doug Hoffmann's candidacy. Again. Yesterday, as noted here, Allen said Republicans would be "crazy" and "suicidal" to support the conservative in the special congressional election in New York's 23rd CD. Today, Politico's chief political correspondent has claimed that a Hoffman victory would spell "chaos" in Republican ranks. And check the video for Mike Barnicle making an elitist crack about the upstate NY district, and Chuck Todd trying to embarrass RNC Chairman Michael Steele . . . View video here.

Mike Allen might not be a Republican political strategist, but he tried playing one on TV today, telling the GOP it was "crazy" and "suicidal" to be supporting Doug Hoffman over Dede Scozzafava in a special congressional election in northern New York. Politico's chief political correspondent offered his unsolicited advice on today's Morning Joe. View video here.

Here is video of Politico's Mike Allen on MSNBC admitting to Willie Geist that the Mainstream Media was slow in covering the unfolding ACORN Scandal, ignoring it because they essentially regarded it as just "noise" from conservatives "obsessed" with ACORN. But Allen admitted that if this kind of video came out about an Christian Organization - like the Christian Coalition, for instance, it would be a major story in every newsroom. Both Geist and Allen agreed that this is NOT just a "Fox News story," but an important one. Allen said newsroom editors are telling him they were slow to...

Who comes up with these headlines. Plain propoganda. Did I miss something, when did Obama originally cut the deficit?

Dennis Whitfield of the American Conservative Union has sent out a press release on today’s embarrassing Mike Allen story that alleges a pay-for-play proposal between the conservative group and FedEx. "" “An article containing a false headline has been published by Capitol Hill newspaper Politico today regarding an issue with expansion of the National Labor Relations Board. This article concerns two letters; one issued by ACU and another issued by a separate organization. Mr. David Keene’s name was on a letter prepared by another organization. This was a personal decision on his part and he was not representing ACU at...

John Cook of the gossip website Gawker discovered that the White House press elite partied down with President Obama on ahem, Independence Day: Reporters from roughly 30 television networks, newspapers, magazines, and web sites celebrated the Fourth of July with Barack Obama at the White House last weekend. Why didn't you know that? Because they were sworn to secrecy. We reported yesterday that Politico's Mike Allen was spotted milling about as a guest at the White House's "backyard bash" by the pool reporter, who was allowed into the event for 40 minutes and kept in a pen before being...

Reporters from roughly 30 television networks, newspapers, magazines, and web sites celebrated the Fourth of July with Barack Obama at the White House last weekend. Why didn't you know that? Because they were sworn to secrecy. We reported yesterday that Politico's Mike Allen was spotted milling about as a guest at the White House's "backyard bash" by the pool reporter, who was allowed into the event for 40 minutes and kept in a pen before being ushered out. When Allen quoted from the pool report in his Playbook column the next day, he deleted a reference to his own name...

White House Press Corps Spent the Fourth of July Hanging Out With Obama, Off the Record By John Cook, 12:44 PM on Thu Jul 9 2009, 1,046 views (Edit, to draft, Top, Slurp) Copy this whole post to another site Slurp cancel select site advertising consumerist deadspin defamer fleshbot gay fleshbot gawker gizmodo idolator io9 jalopnik jezebel kotaku lifehacker valleywag artists gawkershop Reporters from more than 30 television networks, newspapers, magazines, and web sites celebrated the Fourth of July with Barack Obama at the White House last weekend. Why didn't you know that? Because they were sworn to secrecy. We...

WaPo cancels lobbyist eventBy: Mike Allen and Michael Calderone July 2, 2009 08:04 AM EST Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive "salon" at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors. The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for...

Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was cancelling plans for an exclusive "salon" at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors. The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and...

Washington Post Publisher and Chief Executive Officer Katharine Weymouth said today she was cancelling plans for an exclusive "salon" at her home where, for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few": Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The Washington Post has long prided itself on its access to the capital's elite. Now, it appears, the paper is willing to sell that access. In a flier circulated to Beltway lobbyists, the Post touted a "salon" program which gives "exclusive access" to "Obama administration officials, Congress members, business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds" for between $25,000 and $250,000. (View an image of the flier.) White House officials said privately Thursday that the administration had no idea that the Post was peddling access to its officials. The first event, entitled "Health-Care Reform: Better or Worse for Americans" is...

The Washington Post is marketing to institutional executives and lobbyists dinners with congressmen, Obama officials and its own reporters, according to Politico.com. The "salons" will be held at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. Price for access ranges from $25,000 to $250,000, according to the flier. So much for the role of watchdog. At least now, there is no excuse for doubting everything you read. The new service was made known to the general public by a health-care lobbyist offended by the policy. The flier baldly said the dinners would provide access to the paper's “health care reporting...

It was fast. Very fast. At 8.04am, Politico's Mike Allen publishes an article: "For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" -- Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper's own reporters and editors." At 10.33am, Washington Post editor Marcus Brauchli sends out an email:

WashPost sells access, $25,000+ By: Mike Allen July 2, 2009 08:04 AM EST For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record, non-confrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors. The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health-care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff." The offer—which essentially...

I don’t know what Mike Allen thought he was getting himself into here, but after this he’d be well advised not to go throwing stones at anyone else for coming off badly in interviews. The clip’s long but the first 3:45 is intro and can be safely skipped if you watched the MSNBC vid this morning. Enjoy. CLICK ON ABOVE LINK AND LISTEN TO THE AUDIO ( start at the 3:45 mark) FOR THE CONFRONTATION ( Mike Allen was SCHOOLED here ).

Is a new Mika Brzezinski emerging: a more fair-’n-balanced one? Signs point to yes. Yesterday on Morning Joe, as noted here, Joe Scarborough described the members of the White House press corps as being “in love” with Pres. Obama to the extent that at the big dinner this past Saturday night that PBO attended, they were like “a bunch of teenage girls waiting for a Bay City Rollers concert, waiting to scream at the top of their [lungs].” Not merely did Mika agree, she added another tasty morsel to the stew, revealing that behind the scenes, the TV production crew–big...

It's a sad Saturday morning for Washington's extended family. Fox News reported this morning that Tony Snow, who valiantly battled a merciless colon cancer in the public eye, passed early this morning. He was 53. Snow brought humor and vigor to the podium as President Bush's press secretary after a career at Fox News that had made Tony one of the nation's most famous conservatives. On White House trips, he was a red-state rock star, with throngs of admirers lining up for a handshake or an autograph. Fox said he died at Georgetown University Hospital at about 2 a.m. He...

Gramm calls slowdown 'mental' By: Mike Allen July 10, 2008 10:01 AM EST Former senator Phil Gramm, a top economic adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), referred to the economic slowdown as "a mental recession," and referred to the United States as “a nation of whiners.” The comments, in an interview with The Washington Times, could hurt the campaign’s efforts to convince working-class Americans that McCain feels their pain. Democrats immediately condemned the remarks as “callous,” and quickly began working to gain widespread attention for them. The Democratic National Committee issued a statement titled: “Out of Touch Much, Phil.”

The McCain campaign will release its first ad of the general election today, a spot called "Safe" that features Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) talking to the camera about his war heroism and judgment on national security. That theme gives a hint of the McCain campaign's planned positive message, in addition to its plans to hit Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as inexperienced. A campaign official calls the ad "the first shot in John McCain’s major general election ad campaign." In the ad, McCain says: "Only a fool or a fraud talks tough or romantically about war. ... I was shot down...

It's turning into quite the morning for, uh, outing double-standards in the media. First was my item mentioning that Bob Herbert of the NYT had accused Hillary Clinton of "opening a trap door" under Obama. Readers are invited to imagine the PC outrage if a conservative had expressed the desire to do the same to the Illinois senator. Now comes Mike Allen of the Politico. In his Playbook column of this morning, Allen offers this quote from Jann Wenner's over-the-top endorsement of Obama in Rolling Stone: We have a deeply divided nation . . . A new president must heal...

Rush Limbaugh, who has been critical of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), embraced him Thursday now that they have a common enemy: The New York Times. Limbaugh and other conservative commentators rushed to defend McCain on Thursday against a potentially damaging article in The New York Times, embracing a maverick they have often attacked. "You're surprised that Page Six-type gossip is on the front page of The New York Times?" Limbaugh asked as he began his radio show. "Where have you been? How in the world can anybody be surprised?" Limbaugh said earlier in an e-mail to Politico that the Times...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whose campaign for the Republican presidential nomination has suffered a cascade of setbacks, decided Sunday night to make a surprise return to California for a rally less than 12 hours before the Super Tuesday polls open, campaign officials said. The trip reflects a last-minute effort by Romney to slow the momentum enjoyed by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who's coming off a big win in Florida. Romney is trying to do just well enough Tuesday to give conservatives the time and incentive to mobilize against McCain, who has always had tense relations with party activists. McCain...

DES MOINES, Iowa – Several Republican officials close to Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign said they expect the candidate will drop out of the race within days if he finishes poorly in Thursday’s Iowa caucus.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, surging in Iowa polls in the Republican presidential race, wrote on a questionnaire while running for U.S. Senate in 1992 that homosexuality is "aberrant" and "sinful." "I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk," Huckabee wrote in the questionnaire for The Associated Press, which reported the answer on Saturday

Fred Thompson has been acting like he has all the time in the world to get his campaign going, with his aides and advisers saying they wanted to get a first-class organization humming before the “Law & Order” actor steps out for his close-up. One adviser, seeking to calm down an excitable reporter, even pointed out that “there will be two World Series” before the 2008 election. But in fact Thompson – who plans to travel the country with his family in a luxury bus emblazoned with the words “Security, Unity, Prosperity” -- is in a race against time that...

WACO, Texas — A day after announcing he will leave government Aug. 31, an unrepentant Karl Rove said Tuesday that Democrats are headed toward repeating Vietnam-era mistakes that gave Republicans the upper hand on national defense for 30 years. “The Democrats have a problem with national security,” the White House senior adviser said. “Too many Democratic leaders are opposing policies that will lead to America’s success in the Middle East.” In an hour-long interview near the Crawford White House, Rove said congressional efforts to oppose President Bush’s “surge” strategy have clear echoes of Democrats in the early 1970s who cut...

To the surprise of the Bush administration, the House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously Wednesday night to allow all 435 House members to see the classified version of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq sent to the White House last week. The report is classified in part because it contains information about sources and methods used in intelligence-gathering. The document will provide fuel for a House debate, scheduled to begin Tuesday, on a resolution of disapproval of President Bush’s plan to boost U.S. troop strength in Iraq. Remarkably, each House member will be given five minutes to speak. The decision to...

In the span of four years, the Bush Administration has been forced to rethink the pre-emptive "Bush doctrine" by which it hoped to remake the world, as the strategy's ineffectiveness was exposed by the very policies it prescribed, TIME's Mike Allen and Romesh Ratnesar report in this weeks cover story on 'The End of Cowboy Diplomacy' on newsstands Monday, July 9th. President George W. Bush came to office pledging to focus on domestic issues and pursue a "humble" foreign policy that would avoid the entanglements of the Bill Clinton years. After Sept. 11, however, the Bush team embarked on...

If the midterm elections were held today, top strategists of both parties say privately, the Republicans would probably lose the 15 seats they need to keep control of the House of Representatives Considering that Vice President Dick Cheney had come a long way to help Florida Congressman Ric Keller raise $250,000 last week, the reception he got in the Sunshine State could have been a bit warmer. After extolling Cheney as "one of the most effective Vice Presidents in the history of the U.S.," Keller launched into all the times he had recently opposed the Bush Administration, including the deal...

What really happened in the brushy South Texas wild that day? How one shot turned a genteel quail hunt into a political crisis? The delicate and the dangerous meet in the ranch lands of South Texas. In the winter, quail gather in the soft gold of prairie sedge, but snakes, scorpions and wild-boar-like javelina lurk too. In 1999 a fourth-generation South Texas rancher named Tobin Armstrong testified before Congress that he sometimes found illegal immigrants dead of dehydration in the unforgiving brush of his 49,300-acre ranch. It was there that Vice President Dick Cheney, out with a hunting party that...

by Mark Finkelstein February 17, 2006 It wasn't enough for Chris Matthews to analogize the Bush administration to a family of Mafia killers. He had to call President Bush "Fredo," the weak brother. Matthews' theory was that Bush was unable to control Cheney's handling of the shooting incident in a manner similar to which Fredo was unable to control his wife. As he amply demonstrated at his press conference today, Harry Whittington is not on life support, but Matthews was working as feverishly as an EMS on a heart attack victim to keep the Cheney story alive. And in doing...

Word of the mishap took 20 hours to get out as the Vice President insisted on telling a local newspaper before everyone else, sources say.The Vice President was the press strategist, and Karl Rove was the investigative reporter. Vice President Cheney overruled the advice of several members of the White House staff and insisted on sticking to a plan for releasing information about his hunting accident that resulted in a 20-hour, overnight delay in public confirmation of the startling incident, according to several Republican sources. "This is either a cover-up story or an incompetence story," said a top Republican who...

First Lady Laura Bush and her daughter Barbara are greeted by Pope Benedict XVI Being a member of the White House Press Pool, especially when you are subject to the strict rules of the Vatican, is not nearly as glamorous as some may imagine. As the print pool reporter for the First Lady's five-day trip to Italy, responsible for sharing my reporting with my fellow journalists in the Fourth Estate, I experienced that firsthand during Mrs. Bush's visit to the Pope Thursday morning and learned the 5 Rules of the Press Pool when you're visiting the Pope. 1) Don't...

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Exclusive_Time_ABC_reporters_called_out_0209.html The press pool was in the charge of a nun, attired in blue, who could not conceive of ABC’s Ann Compton taking a laptop into the palace. The reporters had been told to bring their stuff with them because they would be running to catch the motorcade as Mrs. Bush departed. “Leave it to a colleague outside,” the nun said insistently. “You don’t need a computer.” “Finally, the nun did away with diplomacy and said, “There is no way.” An Associated Press reporter from Rome (whose uncanny hearing and generosity are responsible for some of the quotes above) asked...

"He was a great President. But boy, they mistreated him. He did what he thought was right." George W. Bush's entry for himself in some future history book? Actually, it was the President describing Abraham Lincoln last week during an epic 100-min. question-and-answer session with 9,000 soldiers and students at Kansas State University. Bush hastened to say he was not comparing himself with that iconic wartime President: "I would never do that." But that's how this President sees himself, according to friends. And last week he began reminding us, selling himself with more vim and certitude than at any other...