Month: July 2007
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No substantive reply from Brooks
When I criticized a David Brooks column last week, Matthew Yglesias linked to it and then noted the problem it highlights with the op-ed format: Brendan Nyhan gears up for battle with David Brooks’ anti-neo-populism and he’s backed up with a whole bunch of charts. This is a reminder, I think, of why we should
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Bush and Brown in “Golf Cart One”
Via my officemate MCB, the New York Times has an amusing picture of George W. Bush and Gordon Brown riding in “Golf Cart One”: I’ll open the caption contest in comments. Update 7/30 9:15 PM: Wonkette, which picked up the post, has many more caption suggestions in comments.
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Limbaugh’s latest anti-dissent agitprop
Via Andrew Sullivan, Rush Limbaugh is again suggesting that Democrats want to lose the war in Iraq and the war on terror and are on the side of Osama bin Laden: You look at the Democrat Party, look at their leaders and how they are trying to secure defeat in Iraq and secure defeat in
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Why are Iraq “right decision” numbers up?
With no significant evidence of progress in Iraq, why are poll numbers up for whether we made the right decision to invade? Here’s a New York Times Week in Review article on the puzzle: The Times and CBS News conducted a poll from July 9 to July 17 with 1,554 adults, mostly about Hillary Clinton…
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The strange world of book reviews
Bizarrely, the New York Times published a review today of Bob Shrum’s book No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner, which was released on June 5. I can understand late reviews of sleepers like The Kite Runner that take a while to gain recognition, but Shrum’s book got a lot of press attention from the
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Robert Samuelson fails first grade math
Even philosophy major Matthew Yglesias is offended by the mathematical failings of Robert Samuelson, who writes that “If you move to a home 25 percent larger and then increase energy efficiency 25 percent, you don’t save energy.” But as Yglesias points out, 1.25*.75=.9375, which is less than 1. Ouch. PS Yglesias later noted that “irrespective
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The sounds of silence on Spitzer
The liberal blogosphere has been very quiet about the predicament of NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who seems determined to create an awkward parallel to the White House: Gov. Eliot Spitzer vowed on Wednesday to fight any State Senate inquiry into his administration’s internal operations, even as Republican senators were laying the groundwork for an investigation
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The myth of the “Do-Nothing Congress”
Did you know the famous “Do Nothing Congress” of 1947-1948 actually accomplished a great deal? I didn’t. When I interviewed him for my dissertation, National Journal’s Carl Cannon pointed me to this piece of his (NJ sub. req.), which debunks the myth: By 1948, while running for his own election, Truman denounced his rivals as
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Kimberley Strassel on “truth”
The latest in conservative postmodernism — WSJ’s Kimberley Strassel defines “truth” as what White House officials tell Congress in private not under oath: Mr. Conyers, of course, has yet another honorable option: to take up the White House on its offer of making top officials available for questioning in private, and not under oath. If
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The lame debate over Michael Moore’s “Sicko”
My friend and former Spinsanity co-editor Ben Fritz and I have written a new column for the site on the debate over Michael Moore’s “Sicko.” Here’s how it begins: The mainstream media has started fact-checking Michael Moore one movie too late. As veteran fact-checkers of Michael Moore, we should be taking a victory lap in