LEBANESE DEMOCRACY? I often had cause to wonder whether or not people understood this during the Cedar Revolution, and in light of the president's repeated insistence that Hezbollah is afraid of democracy during today's press conference, it's clear that the White House doesn't. Democracy, simply put, isn't what's at issue in Lebanese politics.
STALINIST BLOGGERS. Ah, the great blogofascism debate of '06 returns. Josh Marshall makes this inadvertantly hilarious entry into the fray:
Actually did you know that TPM is related to Stalin by marriage? Little known fact. Actually not even sure if it's true. But it seemed to be from what I could tell. I'll look into it again.
TRICKY, TRICKY. Oh, those Republicans. Tired of being such grinches on the minimum wage, they flipped on the bill, crafting a proposal to raise the wage and rollback the estate tax. The Democrats, it seems to me, have precisely the right response to this gambit:
Its political blackmail to say the only way that minimum wage workers can get a raise is to give a tax giveaways to the wealthiest Americans," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. "Members of Congress raised their own pay � no strings attached. Surely, common decency suggests that minimum wage workers deserve the same respect."
JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: SURVIVING SUDOKU. Cruciverbalist Matt Gaffneyponders the love-hate relationship crossword writers have with the Japanese puzzle sensation.
THE CONEHEAD ECONOMY. Among the best of the new Times Select features are their "Talking Points," long backgrounders penned by the editorial writers on all manner of major issues, from inequality to global warming. This week, Teresa Tritchpublished one on "The Rise of the Super-Rich," explaining that "[i]ncome inequality used to be about rich versus poor, but now it�s increasingly a matter of the ultra rich and everyone else." Few stories are as important, or as poorly understood. From 2003 to 2004, real average income for the top 1 percent of households shot up by 17 percent. For the remaining 99 percent, the average gain was under three percent.
JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: GENERAL HOSPITAL. Remember the SEC's investigation into Bill Frist's conveniently-timed sale of stock from his family's hospital chain, HCA? This week's news that the for-profit hospital behemoth is selling to a group of private equity investors has reminded people of that ongoing investigation. Maggie Mahar, author of the new book Money-Driven Medicine, tells the story of the Frist family empire and contemplates the larger saga of for-profit hospitals in America -- a history marked by cycles of boom, bust, and scandal.
GOOD NEWS FOR PEOPLE WHO LIKE BAD NEWS.The New York Times has a perceptive article today documenting the shift in support towards Hezbollah in the Arab world. After an early moment of hope, when a variety of Arab governments condemned Hezbollah�s extra-state provocations, the sustained brutality of the Israeli response has warmed the Arab world to Hezbollah's side.
THE DETERRENCE DEBATE. Here's a new wrinkle in a longstanding controversy. Rather than argue, implausibly but in line with tradition, that we can't deter Iran because "the Mullahs are crazy" or some such thing, Reuel Marc Gerechtthinks we can't do it because we're too soft and weak. As a read of American psychology, this strikes me as stunning. It's also a theory that ill-suits Gerecht's generally hawkish views. We lack the grit to respond to a direct, unprovoked attack on our citizens but are the sort of country that should make a series of preventative wars the linchpin of our national security strategy. Really?
JUST POSTED ONLINE: WHAT WOULD JOE AND EILEEN DO? To complement the audio, here's the transcript: It's Chuck Schumer unleashed. The senator had breakfast with journalists from the Prospect and elsewhere on July 12. Hear him expound on the death of New Deal liberalism and Reagan conservatism, what American swing-voter prototypes Joe and Eileen can teach Democrats -- and what Tomasky got wrong about the common good.
CHRIS CANNON: COALMINE CANARY. As we move closer to the midterms, the list of top targets produced by various prognosticators is congealing a bit, and this week NPR published a Greenberg Quinlan Rosner survey (PDF) of the top 50 most competitive districts, based on a pooled list taken from the Cook Political Report, the Stu Rothenberg Report, the Hotline and Larry Sabato�s Crystal Ball.
