As PoliticsDaily.com approaches the 100-day mark – we'll clink our virtual champagne flutes on Tuesday, Aug. 4 – I want to thank our readers for showing up every day and making our online magazine the best-read politics site on the Web, according to ComScore, with 2.4 million unique visitors in our first month, May, and 3.6 million unique visitors in June.
Our team -- eight staff and 30 contract writers and editors, plus eight contributors to our student blog, The Cram -- continues to grow. Today, we welcome award-winning religion writer David Gibson to our staff. (Here are just a few of my favorite pieces among those Gibson did for PD before joining us full-time.) His previous incarnations include stints on Capitol Hill, at the Star-Ledger of New Jersey, and Vatican Radio in Rome – an outfit he calls "a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope.'' A winner of the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, he also has been named the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year, has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN, and is the author of "The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism,'' (HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), and "The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World,'' (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006).
In other Dave news, David Corn, Washington bureau chief of Mother Jones magazine, is launching his Politics Daily blog, "Deep Background,'' today. (And in keeping with our polypartisan approach, we are launching a search for his conservative equal. An Alan Colmes to his Hannity? No.)
Recently, we ran our first short story, a meditation on Washington power, and began commissioning original politics-themed fiction. And today, our best-in-the-bizmilitarywriter, David Wood – do you sense a trend here? -- leaves for Afghanistan, where he will be for the next month, blogging the war for "Afghanistan Notebook,'' as well as filing longer magazine pieces.
Please keep checking in as we continue to provide news and reported commentary from the pros – they have asked me to stop calling them old pros – who have been with us from the beginning: Carl Cannon, who, as in this piece on the media coverage of Sarah Palin and this one on Margaret Sanger and eugenics, asks us to reexamine what we think we know; Jill Lawrence, whose health carecoverageisasgoodasitgets; Walter Shapiro, whose knowledge of presidential first pitches is as encyclopedic as his take on a tieless POTUS was delightful, and Patricia Murphy, who I can send anywhere knowing she won't just come back with a story, but with the story. Not to mention Lynn Sweet, who may never get to ask the president a question again.
Melinda Henneberger is the editor-in-chief of PoliticsDaily.com. She spent 10 years as a reporter for the New York Times, in the paper’s Washington and Rome bureaus... more
With the publication of today's main story by Adam Zagorin and Michael Smallberg, Politics Daily is launching its new investigative reporting unit.
Our investigative coverage, dedicated to the...
Politics Daily Editor-in-Chief Melinda Henneberger joined a panel on "The Diane Rehm Show" this morning for a wide-ranging discussion of the week's top national news stories, including relief efforts...
100 days has been brutal try something else, PLEASE.
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plz3489
1:24AM Aug 2nd 2009
The good news that as bad as things are for the Republican party, with the Dems in charge of Congress and the White House, things are only going to get a lot worse. The party of white Christians is looking at the trend of the country getting darker and less religious. Their support is going way down among young and more educated voters. In 2008 Obama carried - 78 of the 100 counties with the highest education, McCain carried 88 of the 100 counties with the lowest education. They don't have a single potential 2012 presidential candidate who has a chance of winning any states that McCain lost. Their power base is now down to states with minimal DNA diversity and a bunch of old women who think the Earth is 6,000 years old and that Creationism is science. The fact is that the Republican Party is now devolving into a much smaller regional party, instead of a truly national one. While the Limbauciles can still get together on these types of boards and engage in their favorite form of recreation, lie swapping, they are nothing more than comic relief to the reality based community.
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bobfeng1000a
12:40PM Aug 2nd 2009
I found a great dating site_____Wealthyromance .com______where you have the opportunity dreaming about dating a millionaire and make it true! u dont have to be a millionaire.but u can meet one. I thought everyone needed to meet some miracle after all the terrible stuff in the news and the economy___________________
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Lizzie
2:27PM Aug 2nd 2009
plz3489 1:24AM Aug 2nd 2009 Are you telling us that people with the highest education are stupid????. The democrats who are the party of doom and gloom, the sky is falling, the party of liers, cheats and seller of the their vote to the highest bidder, are you so scared that you have to repeat lies??????
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FRANK
5:58PM Jul 31st 2009
YOUR 100 DAYS WAS PRETTY GOOD. WHAT ABOUT OBAMA'S 100 DAYS? WELL, I FIGURE BY THIS TIME NEXT YEAR, WE SHOULD ALL BE HEADING TO HELL IN A HAND BASKET WITH ALL HIS SLOPPY HANDLING OF THE ECONOMY, HEALTH CARE REFORM, WORLD LEADERS, CAP AND TRADE. YOU MIGHT AS WELL PUT YOUR HEAD BETWEEN YOUR LEGS AND KISS YOUR ASS GOOD-BYE!
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randy
9:36PM Aug 2nd 2009
You wingnuts are funny. The previous administration came very close to destroying the country via two disasterous wars and a wrecked economy. It was by far the most incompetent administration in the modern presidential era. I have my differences with the Obama administration but it is far superior than what came previously and much better than what was being offered by the party of southern redneck obstructionist.
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Willet
6:58PM Jul 31st 2009
Not a bad 100 days Melinda. And, you've put together quite a crew there...David Gibson, David Corn, Jill Lawrence, Lynn Sweet, Carl Cannon, Walter Shapiro, Patricia Murphy. No one can accuse you of assembling a team full of former bench warmers and washouts. I admire that quality in people....giving the down and out a second, third and even a forth shot.
But, you need to shake things up Melinda, bring in some new talent with fresh ideas. Someone that would fit-in well with this group, see eye-to-eye with them, an award winner. That person Melinda is.....Britney Spears.
She's got talent, she can write (gimme more...gimme more) Britney's words to one of her songs. Walter can't write like that and neither can Jill Lawrence. And passing questions to the president....there is no way Britney would have been caught passing 1 question to the president. Heck, Britney would have gone for 1 question plus 2 follow-ups. That's a real pro Melinda, not some bench warmer.
So there you go Melinda, add a starter to your staff....Britney Spears, before Arianna Huffington gets her.
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bob
7:31PM Jul 31st 2009
That's all well and good but since this is AOL you might want to keep track of the things they care most about when determining whether or not you've had a successful first 100 days.
Those would be eyeball count and related ad revenue.
Idealism is for wussies.
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Rheinhart Moxon
8:19PM Jul 31st 2009
In just a hundred days you have enough Rightwing lunacy in your Archive to be a treasure trove for Psychiatrists of the future who are studying the mental decline of White Republicans between 1980 and whenever they finally die off!
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PCL
4:50AM Aug 1st 2009
Congrats Melinda and all the PD writers. But I must agree with Willet up there--Brittany Spears would be quite the catch, although the editing time would be murder.
And Rheinhart Moxon, the Republicans, like the Democrats a few years back, are down right now; however, I wouldn't call the coroner just yet. Those who have the gold, are not going to let so many of those who do their bidding just go quietly in the night.
And Rheinhart Moxon, the Republicans, like the Democrats a few years back, are down right now; however, I wouldn't call the coroner just yet. Those who have the gold, are not going to let so many of those who do their bidding just go quietly in the night.
http://splashinthepacific.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/whoever-owns-the-gold-owns-the-rulemakers-too/ --------------------------------- Considering any corporation worth its salt is structured so as to pay very little in American taxes, this keeping the income taxes paid by the rest of us at a higher level than they should be, I think you have a good arguement that those with the gold are already out of America.
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Karen Davidson
9:24AM Aug 1st 2009
I have only been reading Politics Daily for 3 days, but I love it! Keep up the great work!
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bobbillfreeman
10:59AM Aug 1st 2009
100 days of irrelevant, opinionated, leftist pap. Keep it up, I'm sure you'll do at least as well as Air America.
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bob
4:52PM Aug 1st 2009
And on the 101st day they post a rumor about Sarah Palin's supposed pending divorce and then - poof - it's gone.
Nice work.
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Gatorblu
5:30PM Aug 1st 2009
Just when you think Obama and the Democrats are worth 2 good laughs a day, along comes Politics Daily.
And Lynn, you need to take a few lessons from Adrea Mitchell and Barbara Walters. It's your phone number you plant at White House press conferences, not questions.
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Rheinhart Moxon
7:59PM Aug 1st 2009
Speaking of phone numbers and planted questions - How on earth did the Bush White House get Jeff Gannon's phone number? He was/is a gay prostitute... yet Bush gave him a highly coveted Press pass that gave him 24/7 access to the White House and good seating at Bush Press Conferences and allowed him to use White House Press releases as his own "reporting"!
WTF???
-------- Secret Service records raise new questions about discredited conservative reporter By John Byrne| RAW STORY Editor
In what is unlikely to stem the controversy surrounding disgraced White House correspondent James Guckert, the Secret Service has furnished logs of the writer’s access to the White House after requests by two Democratic congressmembers.
The documents, obtained by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal Guckert had remarkable access to the White House. Though he wrote under the name Jeff Gannon, the records show that he applied with his real name.
Gannon’s ready access to President Bush and his work for a news agency that frequently plagiarized content from other reporters and tailored it to serve a conservative message may raise new questions about the White House’s attempts to seed favorable news coverage. Democrats have sought to paint Guckert in the context of other efforts by the Administration to “plant” positive spin by paying for video news releases and columnists to espouse their views.
Guckert made more than 200 appearances at the White House during his two-year tenure with the fledging conservative websites GOPUSA and Talon News, attending 155 of 196 White House press briefings. He had little to no previous journalism experience, previously worked as a male escort, and was refused a congressional press pass.
Perhaps more notable than the frequency of his attendance, however, is several distinct anomalies about his visits.
Guckert made more than two dozen excursions to the White House when there were no scheduled briefings. On many of these days, the Press Office held press gaggles aboard Air Force One—which raises questions about what Guckert was doing at the White House. On other days, the president held photo opportunities.
On at least fourteen occasions, Secret Service records show either the entry or exit time missing. Generally, the existing entry or exit times correlate with press conferences; on most of these days, the records show that Guckert checked in but was never processed out.
In March, 2003, Guckert left the White House twice on days he had never checked in with the Secret Service. Over the next 22 months, Guckert failed to check out with the Service on fourteen days. On several of these visits, Guckert either entered or exited by a different entry/exit point than his usual one. On one of these days, no briefing was held; on another, he checked in twice but failed to check out.
“I’d be worried if I was the White House and I knew that a reporter with a day pass never left,” one White House reporter told RAW STORY. “I’d wonder, where is he hiding? It seems like a security risk.”
Others who have covered the White House say not checking in or out with the Secret Service is unusual, especially in the wake of Sept. 11. The Secret Service declined to comment.
“We responded to the FOIA request and can provide no further information,” Service spokesman Jonathan Cherry said.
Guckert declined to comment, directing all questions to the Service.
The records furnished by the Service are unlikely to finally answer who approved Gannon’s “temporary” day passes into the presidential residence. The Service keeps a record of who approved passes only for the last sixty days; previous records are kept by the White House.
Since December 2004, all but one of Gannon’s forty-eight temporary appointments were requested by Lois Cassano, a White House Press Office media assistant. One additional request was made by Peter Watkins, a press assistant who now works as deputy press secretary to First Lady Laura Bush.
Guckert sometimes stayed for an extended period of time before and after press conferences, particularly early in his tenure. This was especially common during his first few months, when he might be in the White House for as long as six hours.
A White House reporter dismissed this as insignificant, noting that sometimes reporters stay between events.
“You could probably find people who stayed there for nine hours,” the reporter said.
Occasionally, the former Talon News reporter visited the White House twice on the same day. This was also most common in the early months.
The Secret Service furnished the records after a Freedom of Information Act request from Reps. John Conyers (D-MI) and Louise Slaughter (D-NY).
Guckert drew fire from liberals after asking a question of President Bush earlier this year in which he misquoted the Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Investigative bloggers at Daily Kos and AmericaBlog.org discovered that Guckert owned male escort sites, and was himself a male prostitute.
The now-blogger has also been accused of lifting copy from press releases and other reporters.
A Massachusetts editor and reporter have accused Guckert of plagiarism, which RAW STORY reported in March. The watchdog Media Matters for America has also found that many of Guckert’s stories lifted directly from White House press releases.
Talon News, which shut down after the fracas over Gannon erupted, was self-avowedly Republican. Bobby Eberle, the site's founder, told the Washington Post, "We make no bones about it: It's a partisan site."
In a February letter to President Bush, several Senate Democrats raised concern about Gannon in connection with what they believe is an attempt to “buy” coverage.
“The Gannon/Guckert affair is disturbing because of what we have recently learned about apparent efforts by some in your Administration to try to "buy" favorable news coverage,” the Democrats wrote. “These other efforts include paying news personalities … large sums of money to promote your Administration's education and marriage initiatives, and using taxpayer dollars to produce video news releases promoting the new prescription drug benefit for Medicare beneficiaries and other policies the Administration regards as accomplishments.”
The Administration has defended such efforts, and has sought to downplay their significance.
I found a great dating site_____BillionaireCupid.COM _____. .where you have the opportunity dreaming about dating a millionaire,or even Billionaire and make it true! u dont have to be a millionaire.but u can meet one. I thought everyone needed to meet some miracle after all the terrible stuff in the news and the economy
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chuck
5:47AM Aug 2nd 2009
Bloggers like David Corn will keep alot of us from reading your liberal,socialist,rag
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Ken Green
1:47PM Aug 2nd 2009
Politics Daily's lips must be sore from 100 days of kissing Obama's backside.
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George
2:28PM Aug 2nd 2009
ptz3489 .....Thanks for your insight which I would agree with. You kind of missed the point of my response to the "article", which is about the web sight. It's Politics Daily and their first 100 days not the administrations. You may be getting a little carried away with the political side of life.