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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder - Marc Ambinder is the White House correspondent for National Journal and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. More

Marc Ambinder is the White House correspondent for National Journal. He previously served as the politics editor, and is now a contributing editor, for The Atlantic, where he curated the influential Politics channel on TheAtlantic.com and contributed to the magazine. He was also a chief political consultant to CBS News. Earlier, at NJ's Hotline, Ambinder was the founding editor of "Hotline On Call," a pathbreaking political news blog. He also worked as a producer and reporter for the ABC News Political Unit and was one of the founders of ABC's "The Note." Born in New York City, raised in Central Florida, Ambinder is a 2001 graduate of Harvard and lives in Washington, D.C.

The All-American Presidential Forum On PBS: A Brief Review

By Marc Ambinder
Jun 28 2007, 10:32 PM ET Comment

** The word I heard most often: "invest," which means -- "spend taxpayer money" to...
** John Edwards knew the subject matter cold and the audience appreciated it.
** Mike Gravel was on his game. (Seriously -- no joke).
** The Democratic candidates seemed to endorse the idea of "tax fairness" without calling for changes to the federal income tax.
** Judging by the level of applause only, Barack Obama was not the "winner" -- but debates are not his format, and many of his answers had nuance that the white candidates did not muster. Anyway, why assume that the black candidate would automatically be the winner?
** Hillary Clinton did well. And she received the evening's only standing O.
** Joe Biden alternated between hectoring and preaching -- a strong night for him. Nice to know about his AIDS test. And that Barack Obama was tested with his wife Michelle, thank you, and not with Biden.
** Bill Richardson seemed unusually quiet, but he proved that he'd read moderator Tavis Smiley's book.
** The focus on criminal justice reform was new, but the candidates were short of solutions.
** Jim Jordan's going to kill me, but, um, Chris Dodd was the whitest guy up there. Sorry Dodd-dudes.
** Wouldn't it be fun to see the Republicans answer the same questions?

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Marc Ambinder
from the Magazine

The Ally From Hell

Pakistan lies. It hosted Osama bin Laden (knowingly or not). Its government is barely functional.…