Russ McBee

Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD) is finishing his final term in Congress, after losing his primary earlier this year. He's become disillusioned with his own party, and he has some less-than-charitable things to say about the GOP: We're in this bad place as a country because of the evangelicals, the neocons, the nasty, bitter and mean ... very clever ...

A group called Science Debate 2008 sent a list of questions about science and technology policy to Barack Obama and John McCain, covering such topics as science education, stem cell research, the politicization of science, space exploration, and numerous other topics. Both candidates responded to the list of fourteen questions; their answers are ...

This week's TennViews roundup of Tennessee liberal bloggers is three roundups in one: the first is on the Democratic National Convention, the second is on McCain's bizarre choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate, and the third is a roundup of everything else. Go here and see what everyone's been talking about this week.

Since about February, I've done my level best to ignore this presidential campaign, and this week, I'm doing my best to ignore the Democratic Convention. The horrible choices of candidates and the scripted pageant happening in Denver have stripped this election of any optimism I might have once held about the next four years. The outcome of this ...

I decided to dedicate this week's TennViews roundup to the selection of Joe Biden as Obama's running mate. Tennessee's liberal blogosphere has a wide and diverse spectrum of opinions on the subject; see how everyone has reacted here.

A short exchange from Twitter: RussM: If there's a single VP choice that could make me even more weary of this campaign, Joe Biden would be it. vagredajr: @RussM: agreed. But maybe now the US can get a MasterCard to pay off the rest of its debts?

Jann Wenner interviews Barack Obama in this week's issue of ''Rolling Stone.'' After Obama enumerated the contents of his iPod, he said this (via Blah3): When Mr. Wenner asked how Mr. Obama might respond to harsh attacks from Republicans, suggesting that Democrats have ''cowered'' in the past, Mr. Obama replied, ''Yeah, I don't do ...

Number of Google News hits on Obama's ''bitter'' remark: 2006 Number of Google Blog Search hits on the same remarks: 3757 Number of Google News hits on Rep. Geoff Davis (R-Kentucky) calling Obama ''boy'': 64 Number of Google Blog Search hits on the same remarks: 112 ''Liberal'' media? Draw your own conclusions.

Barack Obama said this yesterday: ''In a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long. ... The jobs have been gone now for 25 years, and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, and each successive administration ...

Dear Mr. Hobbs: Your slimy insinuation that a man can be inferred as sympathetic to terrorists because his middle name is ''Hussein'' is just as idiotic as suggesting a man is a cocaine-addled imbecile merely because his name is ''George.'' Every day that you remain an apparatchik of the GOP in Tennessee is one more day the Democratic Party ...