| Breaking News from Nationalreview.com Good morning, The House Ways and Means Committee has uncovered new documents in the IRS scandal, and National Review Online has the exclusive. The content of the e-mails suggests that the IRS colluded with the FEC during a campaign-finance investigation of a conservative group. Eliana Johnson reports. Jonah Goldberg looks back on the George Zimmerman case. When does the editing of audio and video cross the line between reporting and fiction? The answer is easy: when it ignores the facts and tries to sway to the public. The maverick is at it again — Senator John McCain is working with the White House on a "grand bargain." With McCain now BFFs with Obama, does this spell more trouble for Republicans in Congress trying to hold the line on negotiations and future tax increases? Jonathan Strong has the inside scoop. One bargaining chip going into this year's debt-ceiling debate is Obamacare. With few of the appropriations bills having passed the House yet, and with the Obamacare implementation deadline looming (October 1), this might be the perfect time to defund Obamacare. NRO columnist Michael Tanner thinks it's worth a shot. Katrina Trinko goes inside "Team Mitch" and speaks with the man at the center of it all, Jesse Benton. Benton previously worked on the campaigns of both Ron Paul and Rand Paul, and is well-respected throughout their Kentucky conservative circles. Learn about how Mitch McConnell may have inoculated himself against a tea-party challenge with just one hire. Before heading out to go fjord-ing, Jim was kind of enough to leave us with a few treats to pass to along to you (we miss him too). These pieces are in consecutive order so be sure to start with today and then go back if you miss a day. We turn our breaking news over to Jim . . . Writing the Red Out of Washington As you read this, I am on the NR cruise until August 8. As you've seen on Campaign Spot, I'm continuing to work my way through Mark Leibovich's This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral — Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking! — in America's Gilded Capital. I had wondered, based on the reviews, whether I would find it a bit insufferable in its denunciation of Washington, D.C. — written by a Washington insider, getting dissected by Politico and garnering rave reviews from the Washington Post and New York Times. Complaining about some of Washington's problems is akin to complaining about the humidity — any national capital is going to attract the ambitious, the egomaniacal, the status-seeking, clubbiness, transactional friendships, and so on. Jonah argued that Washington pretty much deserves all the criticism it's going to get. Hugh Hewitt's extensive interview with Leibovich is perhaps the best discussion of the book and its arguments. So far, this is a fascinating, extremely well-reported book . . . but one that I suspect a lot of conservatives will conclude misses the point a bit. The author catalogues a lot of the traditional conservative complaints about the culture of Washington — mainstream-media reporters who are friends with, married to, or way too personally connected to the people they cover; a liberal groupthink among the most influential media figures; reform stymied by lawmakers' eagerness to pursue lucrative lobbying careers after leaving office. And yet Leibovich seems to conclude "it's Washington," instead of "in past decades, Washington has become controlled by a trio of powerful forces": "the media, mostly Democratic lawmakers with an omerta-like code of loyalty, and K Street." Occasionally, Republicans pop up in its pages — former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie, Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, former Senate majority leader Trent Lott — but by and large, Republicans (and particularly conservatives) are nonentities in the portrait Leibovich paints. As Hewitt put it: HH: All right, now let's talk about red Washington and blue Washington. As I said, you know blue Washington deep, because I think Andrew Breitbart would say, they're joined at the hip, the media, Manhattan-Beltway media elite, and Democratic elites. Not so much red Washington, and many, many obscure blues are feted in This Town, but very few big reds. For example, Krauthammer doesn't show up. Brit Hume, Fred Barnes, there's a nod towards Kristol and towards Bennett and towards Rove . . . Arthur Brooks, Rich Lowry, Steven Smith and Mark Tapscott over at the Examiner, Phil Anschutz, who owns most of the media properties there now for the conservative side . . . Or Ed Atsinger, all the talkers. You know, Mark Levin lives in the Beltway. You don't see them in the background of your stories, because they don't do it, I think. One of the revealing points of This Town is that, to the elites the author describes, Republicans and conservatives . . . aren't really there. Perhaps we flatter ourselves by thinking they hate us; that would require them to notice us. Reading a lengthy and detailed look at the seedy side of Washington politics does make one examine what one dislikes about it, and so for the next week and a half, I'll offer some evergreen thoughts on three things about Washington (and modern politics) that are worth hating, and three things worth loving. Stay tuned. Sponsor:
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