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- There's hardly any need to link to the very predictable conservative response to the Obama administration's new policy concerning the use of nuclear weapons, but needless to say there's nothing any U.S. president can do to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and wiping Persia off the face of the Earth is just not a serious option. The strength of our nuclear arsenal lies in its ability to deter other nuclear powers, and the destructive power of conventional weapons that comes with our air of superiority is more than enough to lay waste to non-nuclear adversaries. Obama is merely acknowledging this fact by fiat.
- This is sloppy political reporting: "If political newcomer Rand Paul, a darling of the Tea Party movement, sails to victory in Kentucky's May 18 GOP primary, the win could prove a harbinger of November's mid-term elections. ... Political analysts and national media outlets continue to focus on the battle between Paul and the Republican establishment's favorite ... as an experiment in grass-roots insurgency powered by disgruntled conservatives who bemoan what they see as an unprecedented expansion of federal government. In many ways, the Kentucky contest will help measure the Tea Party movement's true clout." Emphasis mine. This isn't to pick on Paul, who could very well win this contest, but to point out, once again, that there is not a national Tea Party movement and that these local races are local, not "harbingers" of some electoral sweep or ideological realignment.
- Dylan Matthews takes a crack at understanding what drives climate-change deniers: "The interest of donors in and the unanimity of scientists on climate change are easy things to explain if one accepts that it is a real phenomenon. Trying to explain them while insisting climate change doesn't exist requires assigning bizarre and implausible motives to most parties involved." I would only add that like the conservative mirror-image effect about the size of government, resistance to climate change has roots in preserving pristine market perfection. If you're axiomatically pro-market as a policy unto itself, then you assume your political opponents are axiomatically pro-regulation and wouldn't hesitate to invent a climate crisis toward that end.
- Remainders: Although I endorsed a more practical NASA yesterday, this sentiment expressed by Neil deGrasse Tyson is closer to how I honestly feel; I'm sure if we simply lowered the tax burden on American corporations they would voluntarily stop exploiting loopholes in the tax code; as we all know, Ronald Reagan's low poll numbers before the 1982 midterms reflected a rejection of his radically conservative policies; and with this CNN loses yet another piece of what little remaining prestige it has.
--Mori Dinauer
