Brendan Nyhan

Mind-reading at Bush news conference

When you're a journalist and therefore not an expert on anything substantive, attempt to read the President's mind based on his body language -- it's swami time! Q Thank you, Mr. President. I may want to apologize in advance because -- ...

Yglesias reads McCain's mind again

Matthew Yglesias, who backed off the last time he claimed to read John McCain's mind, is again stretching it with the claim that McCain "doesn't even care about the economic challenges facing the country": If reporters start judging McC...

Elisabeth Bumiller reads Bush's mind

Via Spencer Ackerman and Matthew Yglesias, Russell Baker quotes this swami-like passage from Elisabeth Bumiller's biography of George W. Bush in the New York Review of Books: [Bush] had never met anyone like Rice. She could talk basebal...

Marshall: Cheney advanced al Qaeda agenda

It was bound to happen. For years since 9/11, Republicans have suggested that anti-war dissent helps al Qaeda. Now Josh Marshall, an influential center-left blogger, has reversed the charges, arguing that "It's hard to imagine that the...