How the Democratic campaign turned into an absurd and acrimonious culture war that threatens to split the party in two Zero hour, the night of the excruciating Pennsylvania primary. I'm in the ballroom of the Park Hyatt hotel in Philadelphia, site of Hillary Clinton's victory speech. The place is going nuts. The floor is a teeming mass of celebrating Lifetime demographic; I haven't seen this many strong, independent women in one place since [potentially offensive gender-specific content self-censored by writer]. Clinton, who has just kicked Obama's ass all over the state, is onstage spooning out her...

Nobody doles out taxpayer money like Hillary Clinton — or rakes in as much campaign cash from the companies she does favors for One Sunday about three months ago — on the day before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, in fact — I got out of bed very late and lazily switched on CNN. On the TV screen, Sen. Hillary Clinton was smiling broadly and wearing a black jacket over some strange Oriental get-up. She was standing next to influential black pastor Calvin Butts, in front of the latter's famous Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Camera bulbs were flashing. An important announcement was about to be made. Butts,...

Matt Taibbi Undercover with the Christian Right I pulled into the church parking lot a little after 6:00 p.m., at more or less the last possible minute. The previous half hour or so I'd spent dawdling in my car outside a Goodwill department store off Route 410 in San Antonio, clinging to some inane sports talk show piping over my car radio — anything to hold off my plunge into Religion. There was an old-fashioned white school bus in front of the church entrance, with a puddle of heavyset people milling around its swinging door. Some...

Henry Waxman's aggressive oversight offers Democrats a model for taking on a secret and corrupt administration Since the Democrats regained control of Congress last year, they haven't exactly been taking it to President Bush. They have continued funding for the war in Iraq, rolled over on illegal wiretapping, acquiesced to the administration's ever-broadening bailout of Wall Street and refused to close a tax loophole for hedge-fund billionaires that deprives the treasury of $6  billion a year. Even the party's proudest moments have ended in disarray: After forcing Alberto Gonzales to resign as attorney...

Four experts weigh in on what they would do if they were in Dr. Larry Brilliant's position. Name: Nancy Lindborg Title: President of MercyCorps Organization: MercyCorps works to build community-based solutions for poverty, especially in areas heavy with disaster and conflict. The Idea: Invest in technologies (like a new type of stove) that would address a number of issues at once. Long Solution:: "I would invest in those cool ideas that could address specific aspects of poverty or climate change and bring those ideas to scale. There is no silver bullet. I would love for somebody...

The myth of the "battleground" states, and other frequently asked questions from the campaign trail In the space of three short months, I've contrived to write two lengthy, gloating political obituaries for Hillary Clinton, only to see both of them blow up in my face after fantastic eleventh-hour comebacks that ended with scenes of the Hillmeister doing the dual flabby-arm raise on CNN while gusts of confetti whooshed across the room, obscuring almost everything except the shocking results blaring out from the crawl on the bottom of the screen. There was a time when this race looked like...