NEW YORK—It’s probably a truism that every candidate, in every campaign, will eventually stretch the truth. But when a lie becomes too big, or too brazen, the news media temporarily moves beyond strict reporting and decides to call a foul. At least that’s what happened over the past week in the American presidential race, when John McCain’s claim that Barack Obama supported sex education for kindergartners pushed mainstream news organizations to proclaim flatly that McCain was in the wrong.

The media’s open rebuke of McCain’s sex-ed claim, as well as other mistruths (including Sarah Palin’s claim to have rejected federal funding for Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere”), have reignited the debate over when, whether, and how often the media should call a lie for what it is. Clark Hoyt, the New York Times‘ public editor, argues in today’s paper that election coverage shouldn’t fall into the trap of false equivalency, the he-said/she-said reporting that abdicates any burden of judgment or assessment.  (more…)

This weekend, the Globe and Mail announced that it was freeing its columnists from the tyranny of the online subscriber wall. Get out of the harbour, Jeffrey Simpson; it’s time to go out where the big ships float, Margaret Wente.

By abandoning its Insider subscription program—or “retiring,” if you care to share Edward Greenspon’s euphemism—the Globe has admitted that charging for opinion on the Internet doesn’t work.

Well, hello. (more…)

NEW YORK—One of the best arguments for living in this city is the ability to hear, firsthand, American public intellectuals debate their country’s politics.

NEW YORK—One of the best arguments for living in this city is the ability to hear, firsthand, American public intellectuals debate their country’s politics. At least, it used to be. Apparently you can get that in Toronto now.

It’s great that Canada’s biggest names came out to support a policy discussion at last night’s Munk Debate. And it’s great that Canada’s biggest newspaper believes a policy debate merits twenty-eight photos on its website. In a country whose annual output of serious political essays can barely fill half a shelf at Chapters, intellectuals need all the help they can get. But does anybody find it odd that when Canada’s best and brightest get together, in Canada, to fête public thinkers and talk about their ideas, both the thinkers and their topic are American? (more…)

NEW YORK—Symbolic protest being just as good as any other kind, I have refrained from blogging these past weeks not out of laziness, but as an act of quiet resistance

NEW YORK—Symbolic protest being just as good as any other kind, I have refrained from blogging these past weeks not out of laziness, but as an act of quiet resistance, a one-man revolt against the shallowness and madness of the Democratic presidential primary. Maybe laziness too. But mostly protest.

How could any thinking person not be upset? In this country teeming with toil and conflict—in other words, with legitimate news—how much of the public bandwidth has been commandeered by stories on the strategies and the foibles, the back-stories and the inner circles, of two people who may be historic firsts but whose every human failing is now fully ingrained, unmajestically, in my consciousness? On any given morning, there is more drama on display at the bus stop outside my window than in the “2008 Campaign” pages of the New York Times. (more…)

This week is the 40th anniversary of the occupation of Columbia University by Students for a Democratic Society, a group that makes today’s wildest student activists look like doe-eyed puppies. Whether you think the decline of confrontational politics is a mark of a) growing civility or b) growing apathy, the occasion deserves mention, especially as another political movement sweeps American campuses. For more, I highly recommend a look at this.

After days of anticipation, Robert Mugabe seems ever closer to losing his hold on the people of Zimbabwe. This is cause for celebration: under Mugabe, a once-rich country has been racked by inflation rates of 100,000 percent. The U.S. State Department declared 2007 the worst yet for human rights in Zimbabwe, citing political abductions, killings and torture by government security forces. By any standard, Mugabe’s was a regime that had to go. (more…)

Whatever kind of president John Edwards might have made, a decider he isn’t. The Associated Press reports that Edwards made his first public speech today since dropping out of the Democratic primaries two months ago, and the most important part of the speech was what he didn’t say.

Speaking in North Carolina one week after Bill Richardson, another former candidate, announced his support for Barack Obama, Edwards took the stage as the last former candidate of consequence yet to weigh in on either side. In a deadlocked race, his imprimatur for Obama could arguably have been the blow that ended Clinton’s campaign. (It’s not clear what impact his endorsement for Clinton might have.) (more…)

NEW YORK—Astute readers of this space may have noticed a certain lull this month. In part, I’ve been distracted by other things. But more importantly, a thrilling political winter has turned into a very dull spring.

Slate judged the aptest sports metaphor for this year’s Democratic nomination to be boxing: “a 15-round heavyweight bout that ends with several knockdowns but no clear winner.” This is almost accurate; what’s missing is the fact that the fight was never meant to go past three rounds. By now, my popcorn is finished, my beer is warm, and all I really want to do is go home.

In fact, the most exciting part of the primaries has become predictions on when it all might end. On Wednesday, Philip Bredesen, governor of Tennessee and policy chairman of the Democratic Governors’ Association, urged the party to convene a superdelegate primary in June, the winner of which would effectively become the nominee.

The reception to Bredesen’s idea has been cool. That’s understandable. One of the perks of being a superdelegate in a tight race is a summer of love: endless attention from both candidates, and promises of who knows what. Why would anyone want to cut that short?

But I hope the party comes around, and finds a way to make this race exciting again. The headline writers in this country are killing themselves with boredom.