Uncategorized
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Phony “experts”: Joe Klein & Ben Stein
It’s amazing what so-called experts are allowed to publish in the country’s top publications, as Brad DeLong has noted in two important posts. First, Joe Klein, a columnist for Time, wrote this about the role of experience in the 2008 election: [I]t’s entirely possible that “experience” may be more of a disadvantage than an advantage
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Extreme Makeover: Palestinian Auth. edition
As we showed in All the President’s Spin, the White House has a borderline Pavlovian response to every problem — more spin and PR mumbo jumbo. It’s the political equivalent of “more cowbell”. But I’m still shocked that they spent $1 million to do a visual makeover of the Palestinian Authority (Atlantic subscription required): The
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Bush: “I don’t want to pass [Iraq] off”
According to NBC’s Tim Russert, President Bush made what might be his least credible claim ever in a meeting with Republican members of Congress about Iraq (video starts at 08:07 in this clip): RUSSERT: The president responded, “I don’t want to pass this off to another president. I don’t want to pass this off, particularly,
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Jon Chait vs. the netroots III
The final exchange between Jon Chait and his netroots critics has been posted (see also Chait’s article and part I and II). Much of the carping by his netroots critics is tedious and/or nonsensical — particularly the posturing by Matt Stoller (with Chris Bowers), who was last seen claiming that conservatives “hate democracy.” However, Chait’s
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Misleading poll on Bush knowledge of 9/11?
Rasmussen Reports is touting a poll allegedly showing that many Democrats think President Bush and the CIA knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance: Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know,
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Bruce Bartlett: Dems likely to win in ’08
The conservative pundit Bruce Bartlett thinks Democrats are almost surely going to win the presidency in 2008: As each day passes, it becomes increasingly clear that the Democrats will win the White House next year. It’s not quite 1932, but it’s getting close to a sure thing. All the energy is on their side, they
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Brad DeLong falls into the media bias trap
In the conclusion to All the President’s Spin, which was published in August 2004, we warned that liberals were increasingly following the lead of conservatives and the Bush administration in embracing the worst spin tactics: Some citizens might hope that things will get better when Bush leaves office. But the problem is unlikely to disappear
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Thompson intro: The “Law & Order” theme
In a sane world, a top potential presidential candidate wouldn’t introduce himself to audiences with TV theme music: The audience loved the preview, and applauded the criticism of Hollywood, but also thrilled to Mr. Thompson’s Hollywood stories. As he came to the microphone, the theme of “Law & Order” was played. But then again, we
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Marshall: Bush aids the enemy
I’m sad to report that Josh Marshall, who used to be one of my favorite bloggers, recently argued that President Bush “has been helping Osama bin Laden,” reversing the inflammatory GOP charge that opposition to the war in Iraq aids al Qaeda: Democrats should just hit right back on how President Bush has been helping
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Hoyt to replace Calame as NYT public editor
Hooray! The useless Byron Calame is being replaced as public editor of the New York Times by someone who may have something important to say: The New York Times today named its next public editor, Clark Hoyt, a former Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor who oversaw the Knight Ridder newspaper chain’s coverage that questioned the