David Corn

David Corn is the Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones magazine. Prior to that he was the Washington editor of The Nation magazine for twenty years... more

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Published: 12/17/10

Does Sarah Palin Now Need the 'Lamestream' Media?

So now she needs us. I'm talking about Sarah Palin and the "lamestream media." Ever since her 2008 campaign with John McCain ended in defeat (and recriminations), Palin has waged war on the media. She blamed news reporters for her public image as an intellectual lightweight. (Katie Couric, this means you.) She has denounced both liberal and conservative journalists who have . . . well, been mean to her. She's mounted a feud against Joe McGinniss, who is writing a book on her. After Politico ran an article reporting that unnamed establishment Republicans feared Palin could sink their party, ...

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Published: 12/13/10

Cancun Climate Change Summit Ends: Not Such a Hot Issue?

Here's a bet that I probably won't be able to collect upon: I wager that in 50 years, historians gazing back at now will pay less attention to the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war, or even the economic downturn. They will wonder why present and past administrations did not sufficiently respond to the threat of human-induced climate change. If the scientific consensus is on the mark, the planet is likely to heat up by several degrees in the next half-century, and this will cause all sorts of severe consequences: droughts and other extreme weather, disease, species extinction, water shortages for ...

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Published: 12/10/10

Tax-Cut Deal: Sympathy for the President

It was tough times for progressives before President Obama announced his tax-cut "compromise" with the GOP this week. The Democrats were routed in the midterm elections, tea party zombies were in ascent, and the inspiring change-candidate of 2008 wasn't looking too triumphant. Then came the deal, and many on the left became apoplectic, accusing Obama of caving to the obstructionist Republicans. After all, he had indeed yielded on an article of faith for the left: George W. Bush's tax cut bonuses for the well-to-do had to go. Perhaps even worse, Obama had reached this hard-to-swallow ...

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Published: 12/7/10

Obama-GOP Tax Deal: A Win for Politics, Not Policy

Okay, tea partiers, is this what you really wanted? Republicans holding middle-class taxpayers and unemployed Americans hostage so the well-to-do get budget-busting tax cuts that will be less efficient in generating jobs than other economic initiatives? On Monday, the GOPers succeeded in hammering out a compromise with President Obama that will extend the Bush tax cuts for all taxpayers for two years, including the well-to-do. For caving on the tax breaks for the rich, Obama won a 13-month extension of unemployment insurance, a 2-percent payroll tax credit, $40 billion in tax breaks for ...

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Published: 12/3/10

Obama Goes Quiet on Climate Change

If I said "Cancun" to you, what would you think of? Beaches? Scantily clad bodies? Spring flings? If a year ago I had said "Copenhagen," many of the folks who visit this site would have thought, "That big climate change conference going on." Yet the follow-up conference to that gathering, now under way in Cancun, is invisible in the national media and political debate. Which is a clear indicator of a terrible development: Climate change is off the map. When Barack Obama campaigned for the presidency, climate change was a top issue for him. Here he is campaigning in the fall of 2007 in New ...

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Published: 11/30/10

WikiLeaks Fallout: Should Hillary Clinton Resign?

Should Hillary Clinton resign as secretary of state due to the WikiLeaks revelations? My friend Jack Shafer at Slate makes a good case. His reason: Clinton, like predecessor Condoleezza Rice, signed orders instructing U.S. foreign service officers to spy on the diplomats of other nations. Cables went out under her name telling State Department officials overseas to collect the fingerprints, facial images, DNA, and iris scans of African leaders, to obtain passwords, credit card numbers, and frequent flyer accounts used by foreign diplomats, and to gather private information on United Nations ...

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Published: 11/26/10

Afghanistan: Cowboys & Aliens Both Wrong?

As I watched the trailer for the coming-soon (and preposterously premised) movie, "Cowboys & Aliens," I thought about Afghanistan. Yes, there's a showdown looming between two different worlds. President Barack Obama has promised to start significantly withdrawing troops by next July, and the military (led by Superman-Gen. David Petraeus) is working on a counterinsurgency strategy that would probably take many years to implement fully (if it can be successful -- a super-sized if). The administration is now heading into a year-end review of its Afghanistan policy, yet no mid-term report card can ...

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Published: 11/22/10

The Real Airport Security Debate: Would You Rather Be Groped or Zapped?

Groped by a TSA agent or zapped by harmful radiation? That may well be the real airport screening debate. But in the past weeks, there's been an uproar in the media only over the new intrusive examinations being used at airport screening by the Transportation Security Administration. And this past weekend, the Obama administration officials sent signals that these policies could be eased. On "Face the Nation," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she wouldn't submit to such a pat-down: "I mean, who would?" Yet on CNN, John Pistole, the TSA administrator, said, "No, we are not changing the ...

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Published: 11/19/10

Right vs. Left: It Ain't a Fair Fight

The other night I was on "Hardball" with conservative bad-boy Pat Buchanan. Michael Smerconish, the guest host, asked about a column I had written noting that George W. Bush, in his new book, had disingenuously airbrushed Karl Rove out of his (superficial) accounting of the Plamegate affair. The reason was obvious: Bush wanted to avoid dealing with the dishonesty his White House had relied upon during one of the darker moments of his presidency. Buchanan guffawed, calling the CIA leak case a "silly episode" and a "trivial" matter. Now imagine this scenario: David Axelrod, President Obama's ...

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Published: 11/17/10

Obama Supporters Looking for a Sign in Tax-Cuts Brawl

The other day I had lunch with a fellow active in Democratic fundraising, and he told me about a multimillionaire (nearly a billionaire) who was once a big backer of President Obama. Now this mega-money man says no more. Why? I asked. Obama, my lunchmate replied, doesn't have a spine. And when I was in California this past weekend, several Obama supporters I encountered also expressed intense frustration with the president, each asking a version of the question: When is he going to start fighting? I understand why people wonder that -- even though the president beat his Republican opposition ...

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