×
- Whatever one thinks of David Brooks, I think his column today on Barack Obama pretty much describes the reality of his governing style. And while it is frustrating to liberals who want a little more fight out of Mr. Obama, there is something noble about the president's unflappability in the face of a political system that is in many ways a sick joke. Certainly, having good intentions is insufficient. But compared to its cynical alternative, it's maybe the only thing in Washington that doesn't appear on the verge of collapse.
- If Republican leaders are perhaps tipping their hand by "warning" Democrats that passing health-care reform will hurt them in November, then conservatives like Rich Lowry are overestimating their influence by writing silly columns that suggest a Republican Congress would be a good thing for President Obama. Lowry doesn't actually have an argument for why a Republican Congress is good for Democratic presidents, he just extrapolates from an observation that "[Clinton] learned a bitter lesson in the perils of trying to govern a center-right country in league with a left-wing Congress." But this is what conservative public intellectuals like Lowry do: offer superficially high-minded or contrarian arguments that maximize the desirability of Republican governance.
- It's true, as Brendan Nyhan suggests, that much of the conservative movement is engaged in a postmodern effort to whittle away the truth, but the real question is why this relativism is tolerated, even encouraged, by ostensibly "objective" news organizations. Howell Raines takes a first crack at this in a forthcoming Washington Post column that asks why journalists don't challenge Roger Ailes and Fox News for their blatant Republican cheerleading. Well, that would be nice, but the problem isn't Fox News; it's that the importance of Fox News and the other cable news networks is overblown by Beltway journalists. No one would care about Glenn Beck (outside of good-natured WTF reporting) if there weren't reporters who hang onto his every word.
- Remainders: Obama postpones overseas trip to see health-care reform cross the finish line; the Tea Partiers are rubbing the Christian right the wrong way; waterboarding is something every American should be proud of; conservatives are looking to rehabilitate Joseph McCarthy; I don't expect magazines devoted to the fetishization of wealth to start criticizing billionaires, but it is a symptom of what ails America; and who reads Mickey Kaus, and why?
--Mori Dinauer
