Planet Abell

O K – so the most composed person at the Democratic debate was Brian Williams. And Dennis Kucinich seemed mainstream by comparison to Mike Gravel. And Joe Biden didn’t muck up his a Calvin Coolidge moment by being even slightly verbose about being too verbose. But anyone looking for something other than lackluster job interviews was bound to be disappointed despite the chorus of hype by every MSNBC talking head on the payroll. It's a shame that neither Barack nor Hillary showed off why they are considered first tier candidates rather than maybe just the best of the lot at raising money (ask Howard Dean about the difference). What is Edwards waiting for -- and I don't mean the suspiciously long time he took to answer a question about who his moral authority is (I guess Edwards' opposition to gay marriage stems in equal parts to "my lord," his wife and his father). The First Taste is -- Dull People: these early debates are for political junkies. Given NBC’s onerou...

T he death spiral for Imus came incredibly quickly — sentence carried out a week after the — and incredibly slowly — hard to accept that his media bosses were "shocked shocked" days after the offense and after lots of counties were heard from. A very smart friend was the first to my knowledge to make the "Bonfires of the Vanities" allusion: "It's a Tom Wolf novel now," he wrote me, "not a 'conversation' about race." But let's try to keep it a conversation about race or at least a conversation about standards and the price(s) for violating them. I'm not sorry to see Imus go. But I was not a fan so I don't really count. He does have some friends loyal enough to say that the punishment did not fit his crime (and the less convincing "I know this man's heart" stuff). Bill and Hillary, Sure. But Essense and Kia? The remarks of his undoing, while typical after a fashion over the course of his career, were ...