Photograph of John McCain and President George Bush at the White House by Ron Edmonds/AP Yesterday, Senator John McCain was welcomed and endorsed by President Bush. Bush referenced McCain's doubters and past history, "John showed incredible courage and strength of character and perseverance in order to get to this moment. And that's exactly what we need in a President: somebody that can handle the tough decisions; somebody who won't flinch in the face of......

Photograph of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama debating in Cleveland by Kiichiro Sato/AP Senator Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off for the 20th time last night in Cleveland, Ohio, as they head towards the big March 4 primaries next week. The rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination "traded insults," as they accused each other of negative attacks regarding their health care policies. The NY Times described Clinton as "relentless" - insisting on "responding......

Doug Schoen, the pollster who has worked with Bill Clinton on his 1996 reelection and Mayor Bloomberg, is stirring the Bloomberg for President pot again. He tells the Sun that Ralph Nader's decision to enter the 2008 presidential race could help Bloomberg. Schoen explained, "The Democratic candidate, whoever it may be, will have to tack to the left to protect their left flank, and that leaves more room on the center-left." And what with John......

Senators and rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama met at the University of Texas in Austin tonight for the CNN/Univision debate. The debate was less a showdown than an "agree to disagree" type affair. You can read a transcript here and clips will start to appear, but, per Austinist, here are some of best lines of the night: “I have to confess, I was somewhat amused, the other night,......

Photograph of President Bush, with Vice President Dick Cheney and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in the background, delivering the State of the Union by Ron Edmonds/AP President George Bush gave his final State of the Union address, sounding positive about his leadership but also noting that there's still more to do: "From expanding opportunity to protecting our country, we have made good progress. Yet we have unfinished business before us, and the......

Over the weekend, Democratic and Republican caucuses were held in Nevada, bringing victory to Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney while John McCain won the South Carolina primary (the Democratic primary will be held next Saturday). While Clinton won in Nevada, Barack Obama's close second and his possible win of one more Nevada delegate than Clinton means that a Democratic front runner is far from certain. John Edwards, though, only managed 4% of the vote......

In the vicious waters of the 2008 presidential campaign, everything is fair game. President Bill Clinton learned that (again!) after a remark he made has drawn the ire of black leaders. So Clinton called into the Reverend Al Sharpton's radio show to explain why used the term "fairy tale" while criticizing Barack Obama. It turns out during a Dartmouth College speech (the day before Hillary Clinton's victory in the New Hampshire primary), the former President......

An exhibit at the main branch of the New York Public Library is drawing outrage from Republicans because some of the work on display depicts former and current members of the Bush administration posing for fake mug shots. Each official in the visionary series, called “Line Up”, is seen holding a slate with a date of arrest corresponding to a date when the official said something about Iraq that was not “reality-based.” Matthew Walter,......

MOVIE: BAM pays homage to the late Barbara Stanwyck tonight with a screening of Forbidden. The 1932 Frank Capra-directed film (which tells the tale of a librarian who has fallen for an unobtainable/married man) was supposedly influenced by his real-life affair with the leading lady. Critic and historian Elliott Stein will discuss the film after the 6:50 screening. 4:30, 6:50 and 915pm // BAM Rose Cinemas [30 Lafayette Ave., Fort Greene] // $11 Meanwhile, the......

Kevin Drew (myspace) is one of the founding members by the wildly successful Canadian art-rock collective Broken Social Scene. The daring, inventive band boasts a fluctuating roster of artists who shift in and out of the line-up depending on their various other musical pursuits; another BSS member, Leslie Feist, is currently absorbed with her suddenly massive solo career, which exploded into mainstream America after her song “1 2 3 4” became an iPod commercial. As......

Democratic presidential frontrunner and New York Senator Hillary Clinton is feeling bruised from the Tuesday night debate, where the big moment was when Clinton gave meandering support of Governor Eliot Spitzer's controversial driver's license plan for illegal immigrants. Spitzer's most recent iteration of the plan involves a three tiered system that neither state Democrats, Republicans or illegal immigrants' rights advocates seem to like very much. Anyway, here's what Clinton said during the debate when questioned......

The City Council unanimously reappointed four commissioners and appointed a new one to the Landmarks Preservation Commission yesterday (via the NY Observer). Four of the five have ties to the outer boroughs. The newest, Diana Chapin, is the Executive Director of the Queens Library Foundation and a founding member of the Historic House Trust, which protects and preserves historic houses. She has served in various positions in the City Parks Department and was the Queens......

Most amusing tip of the week from Gothamist Contribute: "gay ass L train broke down at bedford. probably too many large sunglasses and ugg boots to handle." George Bush has been reading your mail for about a month. Park Slope Moms ain't nothing to fcuk wit'! Related: there ain't no feud like a Park Slope real estate feud, because a Park Slope real estate feud don't stop. Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bus......

House Calls The City has decided that it was just too cruel to keep sick students from calling home when they really needed to so they're making a teeny-weeny exception to its no-cell-phones-in-school policy (just this one teeny-weeny time). After supplying a doctor's note and convincing the principal that they really need them, sick kiddies will be permitted to bring their mobiles to school. But they'll still have to leave them at the principal's office......

The week’s vegetable is quite the workhorse around the world, providing a strong nutritional punch and plenty of flavor – despite what the first George Bush thinks of it. Vegetables can’t quite predict the future, but in hindsight one might think that this revelation into the Mommy issues the Bush family has should have warned us off from them for good. When choosing broccoli at the markets, be sure to look for bright green specimens......

It's global leader week in the city, and many who work, live and travel through East Midtown know that as intense security and more traffic are evident (plea from the Mayor: "Take mass transit"), especially as the President will address the United Nations today. Yesterday, President George Bush and First Lady Laura attended a conference on global literacy sponsored by the White House at the New York Public Library, but the bigger question was whether......

God, we're so sick of Snakes on a Plane that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post. Austinist makes it easy for us, with Candidate......

Gothamist remembers many things about elementary school...paper airplane experiments, painting murals in art class, playing the clarinet (poorly). What would our education have been without all those exciting activities that reached beyond reading, writing and 'rithmatic? Well, it would have been an education under George Bush's No Child Left Behind policy (not so affectionately called 'Every Child Left Behind' by many educators). Nationwide, schools are cutting everything but the basics in order to satisfy......

Man, those hipsters in Williamsburg are sure mad at George Bush! The last couple of weeks has shown a sharp increase of anti-government graffiti-- up about 152% by our reckoning. Poor George! First he finds out that the rest of the country is mad at him, and now he's unwelcome on Bedford Avenue!......

The mayoral election started to heat up yesterday as Freddy Ferrer released his first attack ad against Bloomberg. The 60-second radio spot set to country music emphasizes Bloombergs relationship with George Bush and according to the Times is running largely on radio stations with mostly African-American audiences (because they, studies find, dislike Dubya more than any other group). The ad also rolls out Freddy's new slogan: "Elect Freddy Ferrer mayor. He's not like Mike, he's......

Editor's note: We welcome our first "Lex and the City" column, which is about legal issues the city has faced. Today's column is especially timely, as it's the last Friday of the month - Critical Mass time! This week in Washington, John Roberts was confirmed as the Chief Justice of the United States. While the media will focus on the big cases and the big personalities that decide them, it's easy to overlook the law......

Gothamist loves that on any given night, the performers and writers who create shows like SNL, Conan and the Daily Show are performing live at other venues around the city. It’s just one of the many reasons we love living here and this week it seems like there are more opportunities to check them out than usual. Tonight at 9:30pm, the PIT [154 W. 29th St.] presents Late Night with Conan O’Brien writer and performer......

- Paris Commune, the West Village eatery that moved into new space at 99 Bank Street last year, is celebrating its anniversary by opening the Rouge Wine Bar. Quaff wines from France, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and Chile while you wait for a table upstairs, or finish off your night by sipping on a glass of cognac while you gaze at the original fresco covering two walls. Look closely and you might see Marc......

Cindy Sheehan, the mother who camped outside of George Bush's "Western White House" to demand he discuss her son's death while serving in the Iraq War, had been in town since Sunday, giving anti-war speeches to hundreds of people. But yesterday, her planned speech at Union Square was cut short by the NYPD who seized the audio equipment of event organizer Paul "Zool" Zulkowitz. The police say that Zulkowitz didn't have a permit to use......

Yesterday morning saw the second debate of the Democratic mayoral hopefuls and as it was hoped, this debate featured more zesty repartee. The debate was on a CBS 2 News set, with all the candidates sitting next to each other, which was a more intimate setting and perhaps made some of the candidates feel more comfortable to jostle with each other more. Congressman Anthony "Stickball" Weiner was in pitbull mode, with City Council Speaker......

It's less than 20 hours until the 2012 Olympics city is selected - 7:30PM in Singapore, which means 7:30AM tomorrow morning for us. And the NYC 2012 team has been doing its thing all over the world, having Mayor Bloomberg stump one last time, along with athletes like Muhammed Ali, Nadia Comaneci and Ian Thorpe, helping out. Gothamist loves the idea of Mayor Bloomberg giving "I Love NY" t-shirts to anyone and everyone he meets.......

Based on their 4-song EP and the incredible showmanship of a live show full of cock and bravado, The Bravery have been called the next big thing by the Village Voice and Rolling Stone. With only days remaining until the release of their self-titled debut, we will soon know whether this local band can live up to all the hype. Fueled by the currently hip guitar/synth driven sound, it might all be a matter of......

The NY Times has issued a new editorial about President George Bush. Basically, it talks about how the nation is very divided, what the voters were looking for in each candidate when they went to the polls last night, and how the President needs to ease back from his conversative-base appealing stances on domestic issues in order to get the public behind him - not propel our country furhter into bipartisanship ("But lawmakers can't lead......

Tonight Gothamist doesn't suggest being alone on couch clutching your your bus fare to Canada and copy of Jon Stewart's book America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction. No, we suggest that every other night, but not tonight. Because tonight, we want you to surround yourself with friends and strangers and throw things at the tv together. And what if you had really, really funny friends...wouldn't that be better than your regular friends who are......

It's the Friday before the election, which mean news organizations will be unusually busy in reporting the most minute stories from the respective campaign trails and wondering if the Bush administration will pull a "We've got Osama" rabbit out of the hat or how Kerry can get more mileage out of the missing explosives story. Some subjects of non-election stories are irked that reporters are bothering them and not covering the election (but St.......