Robert Michael "Mickey" Kaus (/ˈkaʊs/; born July 6, 1951) is an American journalist, pundit, and author, known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on Slate until 2010.

[2] Kaus is the author of The End of Equality[3] and had previously worked as a journalist for Newsweek, The New Republic, and Washington Monthly, among other publications.

Stylistically the blog was most notable for its interior monologues including the ruse of a non-existent editor, as well as frequent, ironic exclamation points.

During the 2003 California recall, Kausfiles uncovered an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger by Oui magazine in which he boasted of participating in group sex.

Kaus later posted about a 1981 Today Show appearance where Schwarzenegger claimed that he deliberately damaged chimneys in order to boost demand for his bricklaying business, which was another scoop.

[25][26][27] During the 2008 presidential campaign, Kaus endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, while criticizing other Democrats including Barack Obama.

[28] In 2020, he stated that he had voted for Trump in 2016, but would prefer a more electable Trumpist [5] Kaus is generally moderate on foreign policy (he is notably dovish on issues pertaining to the Middle East).

[30] On November 1, 2005, Kaus and journalist Robert Wright launched BloggingHeads.tv, a video weblog dialog or dia-vlog focusing on mostly-political current events.

Eventually Wright recruited many other bloggers, journalists and scholars to take part, discussing the headlines and latest developments and making predictions.

According to Kaus[32] "Deploying the moose" symbolizes Pinch Sulzberger's idea of "the unaddressed important issue" similar to the "elephant in the room."

[36] In a March 2, 2010 entry on Kausfiles, Kaus announced that he had taken out nomination papers to run in the Senate primary for California against Barbara Boxer.