Uncategorized
-
Jihadist/Nazi comparisons from Beck, Olver
At Spinsanity, we wrote a lot about comparisons between one’s political opponents and Saddam Hussein, terrorists, the Taliban, etc. These kinds of analogies have become (sadly) commonplace in the post-9/11 era. The latest examples come from both sides of the aisle. On the left, Rep. John W. Olver recently referred to House Republicans as “jihadists,”
-
More Iraq numbers up
Via Josh Marshall, another poll is reinforcing the New York Times/Newsweek finding of an uptick in some measures of public support for the war in Iraq. As a reader previously suggested, is it because people aren’t paying attention? We won’t know until after Labor Day, presumably.
-
How the political climate creates charisma
Josh Marshall makes explicit something that most observers fail to realize — their judgments of candidates are shaped by political circumstance: The third is just how weak this field really is — something I knew but hadn’t seen yet quite so up close. I can’t imagine that a sentient Republican could have watched that 90
-
It’s hard to be on the NYT editorial board
Much of what’s gone wrong with elite journalism can be summed up with this perfect little anecdote: One member of the [New York Times] editorial board, who gave up a large, enclosed office in the old building for one of these small fishbowls, growled to me, “There’s no place I can change into a tuxedo.”
-
My one TNR/Beauchamp comment
Until recently, I didn’t realize that The New Republic’s statement on the Scott Beauchamp controversy included the admission that the scene in which he and others mocked a disfigured woman took place in Kuwait before he got to Iraq. Guess that line about how war “degrades every part of you” is no longer operative. On
-
Newt Gingrich suddenly anti-partisan
Once again, can journalists please stop quoting Newt Gingrich decrying partisanship without comment? Gingrich was interrupted with applause once, when he called for an end to the biting partisanship critics say has polarized national politics and paralyzed the workings of government. “We have got to get past this partisan baloney, where I’m not allowed to
-
The epistemology of biography
The New Yorker’s Louis Menand has an incisive critique of biographies in the August 6 issue: [T]he premise of biographies is that the private can account for the public, that the subject’s accomplishments map onto his or her psychic history, and this premise is the justification for digging up the traumatic, the indefensible, and the
-
WSJ picks up Obama nuke myth
A Wall Street Journal editorial on Barack Obama’s most recent foreign policy speech suggests that Obama opposes the use of nuclear weapons “in any circumstances”: [G]iven the Senator’s consistent opposition to the war in Iraq, it may seem peculiar that he should now propose invading a nuclear-armed Muslim country–all the more so since Mr. Obama
-
When copy editors attack!
Someone at the New York Times correction desk is seriously annoyed about their problems spelling the Attorney General’s name: An article in some copies on Wednesday about Congressional efforts to pass legislation to expand the government’s electronic wiretapping powers misspelled — yet again — the surname of the attorney general of the United States, in
-
NY Times: An op-ed page about nothing
Is there some sort of office contest where New York Times columnists compete to write columns on the most lazy or insipid topics? First, we had Gail Collins on John Edwards and tangerines. Then David Brooks spent a whole column on an obscure book about old age from 1911 that he picked up while “rushing