O'Neill V. Bush and other Media Buzz

"Mr. O'Neill was a fish out of water in the Bush administration. Time magazine reports that he considered himself, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman and Secretary of State Colin Powell to be 'three beleaguered souls ... who shared a more nonideological approach [but] were used for window dressing.' Mr. O'Neill tells Ron Suskind, the author of a new book that tells Mr. O'Neill's side of his tour at Treasury, that the three moderates 'may have been there, in large part, as cover' for the administration's conservative agenda.

"'I'm going after everybody because I'm tired of being the pin cushion,' said Dean, who had been leaving the attacks to his advisers but abruptly abandoned that front-runner stance to join the increasingly bitter fray. The former Vermont governor, fighting to translate a narrow lead in the polls into a momentum-building win in Monday's caucuses, fell back on the issue that fueled his improbable rise to prominence -- his outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq and his condemnation of fellow Democrats who backed the administration's policy."

"It took until 2001 for Vermont to celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday as a full-fledged holiday and shut state offices in his honor - and only after the state Legislature forced then-Gov. Howard Dean to cut a deal with state unions, records show."

And the context of his all-white Cabinets in Montpelier: "The 2000 Census found Vermont has 608,827 people and just one-half of 1 percent are black and nearly 1 percent Asian."

Now that The New Republic has run one official Democratic endorsement (for Lieberman) and four dissents, the gang is fighting with each other. Here's Jonathan Chait:

"I think the Democratic Party would have to be crazy to nominate Joe Lieberman for president."
Finally, anyone who thinks it doesn't matter what the candidates wear should check out this Denver Post column by Diane Carman:

"I don't know what's come over me. Suddenly I just can't take my eyes off General Wesley Clark. I mean, since he started wearing argyle sweaters and corduroy pants, yum!"

Note to self: Plan shopping spree to rectify lack of argyle sweaters.


- Blogging By Howard Kurtz