Would you be interested in hearing about what sorts of upper-middle-class feelings David Brooks is having about the 2012 election's field of candidates? Probably not, so click "close tab" and treat yourself to something special. But just in case you are, Gilbert Cruz of Time magazine has asked. Here...

A week after the Newt Gingrich campaign sputtered and fluttered and changed their story about a dozen times on the way to launching a website, they're going to try this whole "announcing a presidential run" thing again. Apparently, the "Suddenly, Maybe" tour will now make a stop in Philadelphia. To...

In an interview with CBN's chief political correspondent, David Brody, Rick Santorum says that it's "silly" to think that he can't win the GOP nomination in 2012. That said, he thinks that "Obamacare is the most important domestic policy issue that we have to deal with," which will probably...

Two weeks ago, Abe Sauer reported on the plight of Danny Pye, a Christian aid worker who has been detained in a Haitian prison for five months, without charge, during which time he has been deprived of food and water. The prison, in Jacmel, is a festering hole, described as...

As you are no doubt aware, an O'Keefian "sting" operation, in which National Public Radio's senior vice president for fundraising was caught on tape disparaging the Tea Party, has rocked NPR and the blogosphere, costing several people with the surname Schiller their livelihoods. It comes at an inopportune time...

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), as the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, is poised to begin a series of hearings geared toward stoking an Islamophobic frenzy over jihadists in our midst, all because King does not personally feel that Muslim-Americans are sufficiently helpful to law enforcement when it comes...

Serial presidential campaign flirter Newt Gingrich doesn't just have problems -- dating back 16 years -- committing to a run for the White House. For even longer, Gingrich has basically been thinking about forming an exploratory committee into monogamy, a situation that has now left him in the position where...

Over at Mediaite, Mark Joyella runs down the highlights of an interview that presidential aspirant Mike Huckabee gave on Sirius Radio's POTUS channel, in which he responds to last week's nonsensical Kenya-Mau Mau Uprising bleatings by...well, I was going to say "by continuing to put his foot...

Kendra Marr notes today that when Greta Van Susteren served up a golden opportunity for Tim Pawlenty to take a shot at his 2012 rival Mitt Romney over Romneycare, Pawlenty "quickly side-stepped" and invoked Ronald Reagan's "11th Commandment":

"Rather than criticizing somebody else's approach, I'll tell you my...

Previously on the Speculatron, we brought you word of this piece from John Ellis for Business Insider, a fine explanation of how the primary process works. The short version: the media budgets a certain amount of money to cover the election; by the time the early...

In some important self-awareness news, vague presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich is apparently cognizant of the fact that his campaign badly "bobbled" the planned rollout of the next step in his believed-to-be-a-campaign for the White House. Gingrich now joins the ranks of everyone else who attempted to follow the conflicting...

More and more, 2012 speculators are backing away from the notion that the 2012 campaign will feature a robust battle between the popular faces on the three-headed frontrunner that is Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee. None have officially declared, but you can be all but certain that Romney's...

When Mitt Romney blew into CPAC as one of the likely frontrunners for the GOP nomination, he gave his speech, presented his case and collected his second-place straw poll finish all without making a single mention of the issue that all of his primary opponents were sure to mention during...

"There are consequences to sin," said Senator John Ensign (R-Nev.), referencing the extra-marital affair that led, inevitably, to the news conference where the troubled Senator announced his forthcoming retirement. And among those consequences? Nevada is set to become as fiercely contested a state in 2012 as it was last...

Your newly revamped Newsweek is now on the newsstands. Here is a photograph of a shoe that forms just a part of the content that the Awl's Choire Sicha predicts will "electrify the waiting rooms of dentists all over Scarsdale." Peter Feld offers a similar upbraid over...

Good morning, one and all, to your semi-live blog of the production of Washington DC's major industrial creation, blather on the teevee. My name is Jason, and I surely hope that when our blather industry collapses, Lindsay Graham cuts the Eminem/Detroit commercial we deserve. "Whatever happened to the...

Oh, Newt Gingrich! For four presidential cycles you have been teasing us with the idea that you are running for president. I think that two ladies have been your potential "First Lady" during that time, and dude, seriously, have you thought about that? I mean, it's going to be really...

After a week of keeping the media guessing on a nearly hourly basis as to whether he was going to officially enter the 2012 presidential fray, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich finally stepped forward to say that his vague presidential ambitions were now vague presidential ambitions that came...

Friday's Washington Post brings word of new findings on U.S. sexual behavior in the form of the National Survey of Family Growth, with good news findings that include a decline in teen pregnancy and an overall increase of condom use and abstinence among the youngest generation. Bill Albert...

Yesterday, The Nation's Chris Hayes published a piece that discussed the "disconnect" between Washington lawmakers and their constituents throughout the country on the the unemployment crisis.

Felt searingly throughout the nation, and especially so in isolated pockets, concern over the crisis seems to be largely declining inside...