Month: July 2005
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Blocking Bush’s nominee is unlikely
I can’t understand why liberals are acting like they will be able to block President Bush’s Supreme Court nominee. No matter who Bush picks, he or she is likely to be confirmed. As James Taranto pointed out, “[n]ot since 1968 has the Senate blocked confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee while the president’s party held
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Matthew Yglesias is wrong about Medicaid fraud
On Tapped, Matthew Yglesias takes on the excellent New York Times series uncovering massive Medicaid fraud in New York (part 1, part 2): TWO CHEERS FOR WASTE AND FRAUD. This is a bit awkward, but I feel compelled to raise a red flag about The New York Times’ decision to run a multi-part series on
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Bob Somerby on the threat to non-political truth
Like me, Bob Somerby is worried about the way liberals are sliding down the slippery slope of spin. He first quotes from Paul Krugman’s column Friday: [W]e’re not living in the America of the past, where even partisans sometimes changed their views when faced with the facts. Instead, we’re living in a country in which
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de Marchi and Munger on Senate Judiciary polarization
Scott de Marchi and Mike Munger, two of my illustrious professors, have published a nice analysis of polarization on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Raleigh News & Observer. Here’s the conclusion: [T]here is no room for compromise, no “swing” votes for the chairman to appeal to. In fact, if Specter tries to compromise, his
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Matt Bai on George Lakoff
Matt Bai’s much-touted article on professor/framing guru George Lakoff came out in the New York Times Magazine this week. I have to admit that I was hoping for more new material (see my previous posts on Lakoff), but Bai does carry the ball forward in a few areas: 1) The disturbing ubiquity of Lakoff among
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A Washington Post primer on the Plame/Wilson/Rove saga
Via Josh Marshall, make sure to check out the Washington Post’s recap of “Plamegate,” which does an admirable job of laying out the whole saga for readers who haven’t followed every twist and turn — something newspapers don’t do nearly enough.
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Michelle Cottle on Bush administration relativism
More on the conservative movement’s slide toward relativism from TNR’s Michelle Cottle: [Karl] Rove is just the latest, most egregious example we’ve seen. Before that, America watched as the CIA head who screwed up the Iraq WMD intelligence was given a pass–and then a medal. Ditto the geniuses who botched–or rather failed to do any–postwar
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Bill Frist tries to criminalize dissent
In response to a Democratic amendment intended to strip Karl Rove of his security clearance, Republican leaders retaliated “with a measure designed to strip the security clearance of the chamber’s top two Democrats.” Here’s the Post’s summary of the stunning amendment: Frist offered his aimed at Reid and Democratic Whip Richard J. Durbin (Ill.). Frist’s
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What is Anne E. Kornblut talking about?
New York Times reporter Anne E. Kornblut needs a history lesson. Here’s what she wrote about Ken Mehlman’s apology yesterday: Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, spoke at the N.A.A.C.P.’s convention in Milwaukee. In his most extensive comments yet on the subject of race, Mr. Mehlman apologized for the so-called Southern strategy that
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Failure of private accounts buried
Why isn’t this on the front page of the New York Times? With no consensus in sight, even among Republicans, the chairmen of the Senate and House committees with jurisdiction over Social Security have decided to postpone further consideration of the issue at least until September. With every passing week, the prospects for major Social