Cnn

A 24-hour news cycle has now passed since Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced that his future plans don’t include running for re-election. And if he hoped to gain a bit of the national news media’s attention, he got it.

Jesse Ventura called Norm Coleman a “hypocrite” last night for having advised Al Franken to concede to Coleman, then failing to take his own advice once the Republican fell behind in the Senate vote-count. The former Independence Party governor made the remark on CNN’s “Larry King Live.” That’s the same show on which the renowned [...]

On CNN Monday, New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh elaborated about claims he first made public March 10 at the University of Minnesota about a U.S. military “executive assassination wing” (or “ring”) called the “Joint Special Operations Command” that killed people in other countries and answered to Vice President Dick Cheney but not Congress. Video after [...]

The campaigns of Democrat Al Franken and Republican Norm Coleman slowed their ballot challenges on Tuesday in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate election recount, setting aside only 60 ballots of the 36,238 recounted for future review by the State Canvassing Board. That suggests that Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s message about reining in challenges may have gotten through to the rival camps. But with U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss’s win putting a Democratic 60-vote majority in the Senate out of reach, whither CNN’s Anderson Cooper?

On CNN’s “American Morning” show today, at the end of a segment titled “America Divided” — about controversial comments such as those made last week by U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann — anchor John Roberts asked commentator Ed Rollins, who managed Ronald Reagan’s 1984 presidential re-election campaign, “How did you screw up Minnesota?” (Minnesota was the only state Democratic challenger Walter Mondale won.) Rollins’ reply: “They voted a lot of dead Indians along the border. 1620 votes, I’m not bitter.”

Rollins’ use of the phrase “dead Indians” is disturbing — especially coming at the end of a segment that began with Bachmann’s labeling as “anti-American” the country’s first major-party African-American presidential nominee. By the most charitable interpretation, Rollins seemed to be saying that Native Americans in northern Minnesota who were ineligible to vote (or even actually deceased?) had thrown the election and denied Reagan a 50-state sweep.

What would it look like if the media took up U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s call to hunt down anti-American members of Congress? Look no farther than this headline from Friday, the day Bachmann made her plea to the press for a Capitol Hill witch hunt: “CNN’s Beck Decamps for Fox News.”
Right-wing host Glenn Beck, who will command a [...]

When CNN began reporting the selection of Sen. Joseph Biden as Sen. Barack Obama’s running-mate based on a “flurry of activity” at Biden’s home, many people — those who’d signed up to receive an exclusive text message about Obama’s choice — were perplexed. Widely hailed as a tech-savvy campaign move, the execution of the Obama campaign’s running-mate announcement via text message left the candidate open to criticism, but little came.

In CNN exit polls conducted last night in Kentucky, about 21 percent of voters said race played a factor in their decision. Nine out of 10 of those voted for Clinton, according to the exit polls. CNN political analyst David Gergen discusses the data (below) and begs an important question: “What if Hillary Clinton were [...]

CNN has launched a new feature that allows online readers to get t-shirts made from headlines. Just click on the icon beside certain headlines to order. But I noted yesterday that not all heads could be printed off and sold. Was it a matter of taste? Apparently not. While, appropriately, one couldn’t make a t-shirt [...]

GOP YouTube debates unraveling: The Star Tribune reports that plans for the Republican version of the recent CNN/YouTube debate among Democratic presidential hopefuls might be “falling apart.” Rudy Giuliani can’t make the Sept. 17 event, and only Sen. John McCain and Rep. Ron Paul have committed to participating. But Mitt Romney seems to have a [...]