Matthew Continetti is editor in chief of the Washington Free Beacon. Prior to joining the Beacon, he was opinion editor of the Weekly Standard, where he remains a contributing editor. The author of The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of the Republican Machine (Doubleday, 2006) and The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star (Sentinel, 2009), Continetti’s articles and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post. A 2003 graduate of Columbia University, where he majored in history, Continetti lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
The future of gun control and immigration reform, and how effective or meaningful either law ultimately would be, remains uncertain. What is certain is that neither guns nor immigration is a public priority, or even close to one.
One of the most boring weeks during my time in Washington has given the press an opportunity to indulge in a gross habit: inflating Hillary Clinton’s already considerable reputation.
Accumulating the capital to mingle with the likes of Jim Messina and President Obama is an arduous undertaking if you are not already a tech billionaire or Hollywood mogul or green energy venture capitalist or Vogue magazine editor or labor boss.
Harry Reid, welcome to the black helicopter crowd.
Never let it be said that President Barack Obama won’t admit his mistakes. “What we don’t want to do is repeat the mistake I think I believe in 2008 we made,” he told a rather paltry crowd of inaugural donors to his “social welfare” group Organizing for Action during dinner at the St. Regis hotel Wednesday. “Where some of that energy just kind of dissipated and we were only playing an inside game.”
In January, pretty much all of respectable Washington had a sense of where President Barack Obama’s second term was headed. His approval ratings were sky high. His liberalism was pure and untroubled by thoughts of post-partisanship. His second-term agenda of immigration reform, gun control, climate change, and tax reform was clear. He would roll over the opposition. The dawn of a liberal age—a permanent majority, perhaps—was at hand. Stinking Republicans? Obama didn’t need them.
Look at question seven, which has Chris Christie defeating Joe Biden in a hypothetical 2016 matchup, 43 percent to 40 percent. Sure, it’s within the margin of error. And sure, the poll also shows Hillary Clinton handily defeating Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan. And sure, 2016 polls are meaningless at this point in the cycle. …
One of my favorite scenes in Lincoln takes place at the White House. Petitioners from across the United States wait in the lobby for an audience with the president. Lincoln meets with a Missouri couple engaged in a property dispute. He tells them a story about his lawyer days and sends them, with kind words of support, to the Capitol. It’s an affecting moment, reminding the audience of how close Americans used to be with their representatives, including the chief executive.
Buried in today’s New York Times report on how “people who are drawn to power exchange in sexuality and may refer to themselves as kinky are finding themselves in the spotlight as never before” is evidence of warcrimes:
E.J. Dionne writes that Washington is out of control and big surprise Republicans are to blame: Only one party is using shutdowns, cliffs, and debt ceilings as routine political weapons. Oh yes, those Machiavelli lookalikes in the House and Senate GOP caucuses sure are using the debt ceiling, fiscal cliff, and sequester fights to their …
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