The Iraq Study Group recommended ramping up diplomacy and putting more responsibility for patrolling the streets on Iraqi forces. It pointedly did not reccomend escalating the war. And yet, here is its co-chairman, the Republican operative and former Sec. of State under Bush’s daddy, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday:
James Baker, the […]

Cold shoulder: Remember last week when Fox News “reported” a story from the Moonie fishwrapper Washington Times about how Illinois Sen. Barak Obama was brainwashed in an Indonesian Muslim madrassah when he was 7? And remember how all the talking tools on wingnut TV and radio shows picked up the unattributed, unresearched and, as it […]

The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform.
— Alfred Kinsey

Exhuming McCarthy: Pres. Bush’s deliberate use of the term “Democrat Party” in his State of the Union speech this month has put this too-cleverly couched linguistic smear back in the spotlight.
Misusing the noun Democrat as an adjective is just one of dozens of deceptive verbal tricks the Republicans used to gain power over the past […]

We can’t let January 2007 pass without noting that this is the second anniversary of publication for Pensito Review.
In the two years we have been publishing, the site has logged over 5 million page views, according to Webalizer software on our servers.
Thanks to all of you.

The Iraq war has spawned a refugee crisis that will likely become increasingly dire over the next year. According to the United Nations, 3.7 million Iraqi citizens are currently displaced as a result of the civil war the U.S. invasion has unleashed. They include 1.7 million who are homeless inside Iraq and 2 million who […]

Appalling pol: It’s a field crowded with celebrity creeps and stellar liars, brazen braggarts and darlings of deceit, but when former Tennessee state Sen. Jeff Miller, R-Cleveland, enters the lobbying biz next year, he should slip right to the top of the heap on an impressively slick slime trail. Miller certainly has what it takes […]

Pop apology: In an entertaining send-up of celebrity apologies, Media Guy Simon Dumenco takes a first step toward healing:
I realize now that I used a phrase in describing Mr. Cowell that is unacceptable in any context or circumstance — even if, say, your shrink just changed your meds, which, by the way, he had.
Editor’s […]

Electoral speculation: Charlie Cook of the National Journal offers up a trenchant analysis of some of the demographic and population trends that could influence the apparent GOP lock-down on the Electoral College in the next election. Of course, we know that the Electoral College isn’t essential to winning the presidency — all you really […]