christopher_hallam

The Ayers conversation has largely distracted from the odd role Tom Brokaw has been playing as a “liason” to the McCain campaign to assure them that the debate will be “fair”. As Josh Marshall recalls, during the Democratic Convention, Brokaw suggested that criticism of McCain was inappropriate because of his status as a former POW. […]

Both Douglass K. Daniel at the AP and Ezra have predicted that McCain will “regret” his decision to attack Barack Obama in as stark terms as he has chosen to do. If McCain loses, we may be treated to another childish pageantry of regret similar to the one that followed McCain’s loss in South Carolina, […]

Opposition to affirmative action is often predicated on the idea that AA harms qualified applicants by evaluating immutable biological characteristics such as race or gender over ability. But these objections have become increasingly hollow over the Bush years, as the Administration stacked the government underqualified but ideologically friendly candidates. But the most powerful indictment of […]

Andrew Sullivan defends his statement that the black community is “the most homophobic community in America” by citing statistics that black folks are more likely to oppose gay marriage than other groups. But what is most notable is what he doesn’t even address, namely that black folks are more likely than other groups to support […]

Two days ago, Andrew Sullivan made a completely unsubstantiated claim that black people are the most “homophobic ethnic group in America.” Since then, a number of black bloggers, including myself, Jamelle at The United States of Jamerica, and Ta-Nehisi Coates have contested this claim using empirical data that show black views on homosexuality are far […]

Nate Silver makes a compelling case that, hype aside, Jewish voters aren’t all that much of a swing vote. All this fuss seems to be misdirected. It is not as though Jewish voters make up an especially large share of the electorate. Just five percent of voters were Jewish in the 2004 elections in Florida, […]

Ben Smith says a “rough bit” of Sarah Palin‘s interview with Katie Couric is when she can’t name an instance of John McCain calling for more regulation, and says “I’ll get back to ya.” That may be because McCain can’t figure out where he stands on the issue. But there are actually several “rough” moments, […]

The problem of black anti-Semitism in America is real, but often overstated. Much of the blame often falls on prominent black Muslim leaders like Louis Farrakhan. But it’s interesting to me that America’s most successful devout Muslim rapper, Lupe Fiasco, keeps dropping references to Judaism. On a track from his last album, Paris, Tokyo Lupe […]

John McCain likes to drop names. Both Obama and McCain make a certain claim to post-partisanship, but both are men of their respective parties, so they engage in rhetorical flourishes to obscure their mostly orthodox ideological approaches. Obama is good at rhetorical flourishes. McCain isn’t. So McCain does name dropping. At the Saddleback Church forum, […]

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