In the current issue of Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi dissects the Democrats’ betrayal of voters on Iraq for personal political gain. To read all of Taibbi’s piece, click here.

Rolling Stone political correspondent Matt Taibbi appeared on HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher on Friday night to discuss how the media has been covering primary season. This is the first of many appearances for Taibbi, who will serve as a frequent contributor to Maher’s program, which airs every Friday night at 11 PM on HBO.

Last night, Rolling Stone political correspondent Matt Taibbi talked about the Clintons, the fallout from the New Hampshire primaries, and what’s next on the campaign trail.

Our humble correspondent reports: Stop blaming the Republicans, and start blaming the voters.

Part Two: Covering the Uncoverable; Council Bluffs Likes Fred Thompson

ACCORDING TO CONVENTIONAL wisdom the 2008 presidential race is already widely considered to be a “very interesting” contest. The ostensible reason for that is that the actual winner, not only of the general election but of the respective nomination processes, will not be known long before 250 million people have two long years of their lives wasted through a relentless barrage of meaningless, masturbatory, spirit-sucking campaign muck. The press corps will therefore be relieved this time around to have something like real suspense attached to the dreary assignment of finding meaning/drama in all of this vacuous bullshit; instead of having to invent controversies and scandals out of thin air, people like me will have real ones (real at least in the context of the campaign) that they can sit back and confidently misreport as they come.

Looking at the field now, it appears that in the end the horse race will come down to three viable candidates on each side – Giuliani, Thompson and Romney on the Republican docket and Hillary, Obama and the tireless John Edwards among the Democrats. Perhaps also squeezing their way into the viewfinder before this is over will be a smattering of minor figures not yet mathematically eliminated, in particular the Christian bassist Mike Huckabee lurking behind the Republican field and, who knows, maybe Bill Richardson on the other side. (more…)

This is the first installment of Matt Taibbi’s new 2008 presidential campaign blog.

Part 1: Fred Thompson’s Wocket’s Wed Gware; no toilets in Council Bluffs; the homeless discuss the race

I was only back on the campaign trail for about four hours before I started to feel unhappy again; this was back a few weeks ago, on actor Fred Thompson’s kickoff tour (see “Running on Empty” in the current Rolling Stone), specifically on a bus run between Des Moines and Council Bluffs on the afternoon of Thompson’s first day of campaigning.
Thompson had had a rough start to his presidential experience. His people had chosen to start things off by having a cow-eyed former Miss Iowa named Carolyn Haugland sing the national anthem for the large crowd of press and supporters gathered at a Des Moines convention center. Haugland is something every state should have – a right-wing beauty queen with a Hannitoid political blog (“That’s when it dawned on me,” she writes, “Bin Laden isn’t just a terrorist. He’s worse – a liberal!”) who eschews post-pageant catalogue work for stridently patriotic campaign performances. Her anthem would have been fine, except that she has a mild lisp. She ended up sounding like Robin Williams doing Elmer Fudd doing Bruce Springsteen doing “Fire.”
“Oah de wam-m-m-pahts we watch…” she belted. “Wuh so gaow-want-wee stwee-e-e-e-ming. And de wockets wed gware…!” (more…)

Last month, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi hit the campaign trail with Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson and watched the now-B-list character actor in action. Check out this video with Taibbi’s narration for more on Thompson’s fantasy world, where all you have to do to be president is pretend you’re the Gipper and act tough on TV.