Robert George

Here’s a flier for the upcoming New York's Funniest Reporter show.

The money raised by the event goes to charity, while the glamour of being named funniest reporter goes directly to the winner's head. Last year, the competition was won by Mandy Stadtmiller of the New York Post, with her colleague Robert George coming in third.

This year's contestants are:

Mandy Stadtmiller - New York Post
Julia Allison - Star Magazine
Robert George - New York Post
Nikki Egan - MSNBC
Sean McCarthy - Daily News
Tasha Harris - Stagetime Magazine

Brave.  read more »

The Post's Robert George (who else!) has the clearest discussion yet, on his blog, of the parallels being drawn between Al Pirro and Bill Clinton: "Jeanine Pirro has a 'husband problem.' Hillary Clinton does not. It might be different in other parts of the country, but New York voters don't equate a felony conviction on tax fraud charges (Al's problem) with the impeachment of a president (who carried the Empire State quite handily twice)."  read more »

Before the election, the New York Post's Robert George raised some eyebrows with a New Republic cover story explaining why he couldn't support George W. Bush. Now one of his colleagues, Ryan Sager, is home from the Conservative Political Action Conference, and a bit freaked out by what he took as the central message:

"We Christians can do this alone, y'all who ain't down with J.C. best be running along."

Sager's and George's articles cast some light on the developing rift between the conservatives -- yes, we're still on conservatives -- around Rudy Giuliani, the Manhattan Instititute, the Journal and Post and Sun, on one hand; and the crowd running the GOP and the country on the other. New York vs. Washington is a shorthand for the split here, which is part cultural, part intellectual. On the cultural side, the New Yorkers are as likely to be Jewish as Christian; likely to have, as Barack Obama put it, gay friends; and unlikely to own guns.

But the ideological split is more important. For the New Yorkers, small government is often the end in itself, as is judicial restraint. They're libertarians and Reaganites when it comes to this. But for the Rick Santorums of the world, small government is a value that can be discarded when it comes to, say, government programs promoting marriage. And judicial restraint is just this week's line of attack against gay rights and abortion. If the legal tide shifts, they'll think of another one.

(New York's Conservative Party is aligned with the national movement. That may be part of why it's dying.)

Sager, along with being a Postie, is a fellow blogger and Sun alum. And for all his hawkishness and libertarianism, he apparently felt distinctly unwelcome at CPAC, as he writes at Tech Central Station:

"The arrogance that will prove problematic, ultimately, was that directed at the libertarian-leaning conservatives by the social conservatives. The message in that regard was clear: We Christians can do this alone, y'all who ain't down with J.C. best be running along.

"That was the message when Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute, who was on a panel to defend President Bush's proposed immigration reforms (supported by no less a conservative institution than The Wall Street Journal), was loudly booed by the anti-immigrant crowd. That was the message when a representative of the Log Cabin Republicans was booed and then asked by a student, 'You people [homosexuals, that is] already have the right to live together, you got the sex, what else do you people want?'  read more »

"In fact, if there was anything particularly striking about this year's CPAC, it is to just what extent Republicans have given up being the party of small government and individual liberty.

"Make absolutely no mistake about it: This party, among its most hard-core supporters, is not about freedom anymore. It is about foisting its members' version of morality and economic intervention on the country. It is, in other words, the mirror image of its hated enemy."

Jazzy, the Yorkshire terrier that was propelled to stardom by his owner, New York Post columnist Cin  read more »

Let's face it: It's a bad idea.  read more »