The New York Observer » Andrew Rice

Chuck Schumer, Legislator

Back when Senator Charles Schumer was a freshman from an embattled minority party, he used to say that if you put his distant predecessor Jacob Javits—the legendary liberal, antiwar, nonconformist Republican—into a centrifuge and spun it around, it would produce a pair of New York isotopes: Daniel Patrick Moynihan, an intellectual who churned out sesquipedalian Read More

Breaking: Jerome Corsi’s Publicity Stunt Works

Far be it for me to condone the Kenyan government’s heavy-handed treatment of anti-Obama polemicist Jerome Corsi, news of which was splashed across the top of the Drudge Report this morning, and is still prominently displayed. It appears to this reporter, who has spent some time in the region, that Corsi’s deportation—if Read More

Oppo Research

ST. PAUL—A huge crowd is gathered around a flat-screen TV on the Xcel center right now watching Obama's O'Reilly Factor interview.

Bush Speechwriter and Republican Elders Celebrate Their New Joan of Arc

This morning, Michael Gerson, the former Bush Administration speechwriter, participated in a panel discussion on democracy and America’s role in the world alongside foreign policy mandarins like Henry Kissinger. Afterward, I walked up to him, and without missing a beat, he said: “You want to talk about Sarah Palin?”

Today, everyone did. It will be some Read More

At Convention Forum, Talk of the ‘Thugs’ and ‘Criminals’ Running Russia

Last night, I wrote about Senator Joe Lieberman’s appearance at a panel discussion on John McCain’s foreign policy. Lieberman’s appearance made the news, but some of the most notable comments actually came from Robert “Bud” McFarlane, the former national security adviser to Ronald Reagan and current member of the McCain campaign’s national security advisory Read More

Lieberman Drops by Foreign-Policy Forum, Explains Himself, Shreds Obama

MINNEAPOLIS—Senator Joe Lieberman sat on an auditorium stage, surrounded by Republicans, and beamed like a satisfied heretic.

It was less than 24 hours since the former Democrat’s convention speech in praise of his friend John McCain, and Lieberman was speaking as part of a panel discussion on the prospective McCain administration’s hypothetical foreign policy. The Read More

The Alaskans on Palin, Themselves

BLOOMINGTON, Minn.—Bill Noll, an Alaskan delegate to the Republican convention, has been a coal entrepreneur, an appointed state officeholder and the mayor of a small town in his home state. “Smaller than Wasilla, actually,” he said with a grin. It had been four days exactly since John McCain had made Alaskan Sarah Palin the most Read More

Pataki Makes an Osama Joke About Obama?

BLOOMINGTON, Minn.--On Sunday, John McCain called for Republicans to “take off their Republican hats and put on their American hats,” stifling any partisan attacks as Hurricane Gustav bore down on the Gulf Coast. Well, that’s over.

At a breakfast speech before the Tennessee and Alaska Republican delegations this morning at the Pawnee Room at the Ramada Read More

In St. Paul, a Funny Charity for a Worthy Cause

ST. PAUL—With much fanfare, this evening’s session of the Republican National Convention was turned into a fundraiser for hurricane relief. Laura Bush and Cindy McCain appeared onstage beneath a video screen that projected a web address, www.causegreater.com, which was set up by the McCain campaign. Visitors to the web site, as well as Read More

Judge Not

Overheard on the bus to the Xcel Energy Center, 2:30 p.m:

A middle-aged couple, members of the Georgia delegation, discuss the news that Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter Bristol is pregnant.

Her: “I guess it’s not so bad if the guy is 17. It’s not like he’s older, right?”

Him: “I wouldn’t know. I abstained until I was 24.”

Her: Read More

In Philadelphia, the Hillary People Keep Track

DENVER—Michael Nutter, the young, brainy, African-American mayor of Philadelphia, took a chance during the Democratic primary season. He vocally supported Hillary Clinton against Barack Obama, the candidate with whom he shares many qualities—and the overwhelming preference, as it turned out, of his constituents. He explained his decision by citing the Clintons’ track record of delivering Read More

Kenyan Politicians to America: Don’t Be Afraid of Obama

DENVER--“America has come very far,” Charity Ngilu said.

Sitting in a Denver cafe, sipping a cup of English tea, Ngilu—Kenya’s minister for water and irrigation, and the highest-ranking member of a small delegation of leaders from her nation who are attending the Democratic convention—was reflecting on the unlikely rise of Barack Obama. Four years ago, Read More

Rendell Confident About One Clinton, At Least

DENVER--Ed Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania, is a man of large and unfettered appetites, and to see him tear into a small, crustless reuben sandwich, corned beef flying, is a little like watching a lion take after a plump, wounded antelope. His first order of business completed, Rendell gallumphed up the microphone at the Pinnacle Read More

Far From the Pepsi Center, Obama Art Thrives: ‘Life, Love, Hope—Whatever’

DENVER—Art is to presidential politics what food rations are to war—a necessary component of the enterprise, but nothing one would choose to consume under normal circumstances. In this, as in so many ways, Barack Obama’s campaign is different.

Early on, Mr. Obama captured the fancy of the bicoastal artistic community, and he’s gone Read More

At Kerry Fund-Raiser, Talk of Stolen Elections and Scurrilous Scumbaggery

DENVER—This Democratic convention, with its change-agent star, is supposed to be all about the future. But for one evening, in one small corner of Denver, the talk was still all about the past—four years past, to be exact.

At a private reception on Monday, Senator John Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Read More