National Democrats

Up in the gilded halls of Congress the Tea Partiers went on a tear last month voting against Debt Ceiling increases and budgets that didn’t cut spending but the whole proposition of fighting it out with Obama seemed altogether too risky to the Pachyderm Republicans so after a fortnight they gave up the ghost and…

The row started, oddly enough, with a single email. Which got answered. And counter answered. Then, boom, there was a full scale war of emails going on (with me watching copies flying back and forth) that lasted two days.     At first I thought my two friends were arguing over who to support in…

  The poor Tea Partiers have been getting pounded from pillar to post by the Washington political bosses and reporters and I’ll grant there’s a streak of oddness in the Tea Partiers but they also possess virtues like fighting for lost causes and having the courage of their convictions and besides, when you get right…

Mitch McConnell sounded a lot like an old-fashioned political boss: He sat down with a columnist from the Wall Street Journal, whipped out a knife, and plunged it right into the Tea Party.   To govern, McConnell said, parties must win. And to win they have to run candidates who’re adults.   That was a…

My grandmother, years ago, would regularly tell me, Carter, you’ve got your wants and your needs confused.     It turns out reporters have the same problem.   What reporters need, just about every day, is a story. And what they want is a crisis to make it an interesting story.   Take the newspaper headlines…