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Dan Froomkin: You Know What the ‘Voter ID’ Push Is All About, So Say So

Does any journalist who is not an overt shill for the right actually believe that Republicans are pushing voter ID laws because they’re concerned about  voter fraud? No, of course not. And for good reason. Voter fraud simply isn’t a problem in this country. Studies have definitively debunked the voter fraud myth time and again. In Pennsyvlania, [...]

Dan Froomkin: Big Questions — Not Just Leaks — About National Security

Two recent books about national security have incited an overwrought kerfuffle about leaks. But what they should have done is provoke a vigorous debate about the startling policies they describe, and the many things that remain unknown. I reviewed the two books — “Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power“, [...]

Dan Froomkin: How Does This End? And 38 Other Questions Congress Should Ask About Afghanistan

Were they the least bit interested in exercising any oversight at all into the war that American soldiers are still fighting and dying in — and that Chinese bond buyers are still providing the cash for — members of Congress wouldn’t have to go very far to find some excellent questions. Congress’s own think tank [...]

Dan Froomkin: Stop Criminalizing Investigative Reporting

Criminally investigating the kinds of leaks that are the bread and butter of national security investigative reporting is a noxious overreaction by hyper-controlling government officials who don’t want us to know what’s being done in our name. Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week that he has assigned two U.S. attorneys to lead criminal leak [...]

Dan Froomkin: And the War Goes On

As President Barack Obama was flying into Afghanistan on Air Force One for a few hours of speeches and ceremonies on Tuesday, Sgt. Nicholas Dickhut was flying back in a box. Dickhut, a 23-year-old from a small town in Minnesota, was killed in a firefight on Sunday in southern Afghanistan,  just hours after calling his [...]

Dan Froomkin: Barack Obama, Press Critic

President Obama had a message to journalists in his talk at the ASNE convention on Tuesday. (Here’s the transcript.) That message in a nutshell: The center is not the midpoint between me and the Republicans. It’s where I am. “This bears on your reporting,” he said. And he explained: I think that there is oftentimes [...]

Dan Froomkin: What Politifact Should Do Now

Yesterday, I sent an email to Politifact editor Bill Adair, expressing my horror over his group’s decision to designate “Republicans voted to kill Medicare” as the “lie of the year.” (See, for an exegesis of that misbegotten choice, Steve Benen, Paul Krugman, Jamison Foser, Charles Pierce, Jason Linkins, et. al.) “Take it back quickly and [...]

Dan Froomkin: Asking the Emperor About Everything Except His Clothes

Reporters covering the mad bipartisan scrum to reach some sort of agreement on federal deficit reduction have been painstakingly recording every detail of rhetorical posturing, noting every political up and down — and missing the real story. They’re not questioning the underlying assumptions, which make this whole exercise a counterproductive farce. Dean Baker, the co-director of [...]

Dan Froomkin: The 2-Year Anniversary of an Excellent Question

Two years ago last week, President Obama announced that he would send more, not fewer, troops to Afghanistan. He also raised an awfully good question. “Many people in the United States — and many in partner countries that have sacrificed so much — have a simple question: What is our purpose in Afghanistan? After so [...]

Dan Froomkin: Ask Boehner’s Economist Friends What Jobs, How Many, and When?

House Speaker John Boehner last week sent President Obama a  statement signed by 150 self-described economists (most of whom you’ve never heard of) calling for immediate spending cuts in the name of job creation. “To support real economic growth and support the creation of private-sector jobs, immediate action is needed to rein in federal spending,” [...]