Dylan Matthews

I appreciate that Jesse Singal took the time to respond to Courtney Martin‘s TAP Online piece about marriage today, but his response seems weak — and privileged to boot. Let’s take this one piece at a time. Jesse rejects Courtney’s objection to the patriarchal connotations of marriage. He writes, “I don’t see how a couple […]

The veepstakes gossip machine is a fickle creature, and this weekend it turned its eyes to Indiana Senator Evan Bayh. Bayh is “almost certainly being vetted”, according to Marc Ambinder, and, despite having endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primaries, he told the National Journal that he and Obama, “know each other, we’re friends, we’re about […]

I’ll admit it: Arguing against awful American foreign policy proposals can get tiresome after a while. A person can only explain how awful an idea bombing Iran is so many times without it getting old. Which is why I’m glad that Charli Carpenter has brought a new, equally horrendous proposition: assassinating Robert Mugabe. Carpenter references […]

Barack Obama is holding a national security summit at Purdue University in Indiana today. This shouldn’t be too surprising; Indiana is a swing state this year, and Obama has been on a foreign policy kick lately. What is notable is who’s joining him at Purdue: former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn. While Nunn has been bandied […]

In an unusual “editorial comment”, ace campaign blogger Marc Ambinder is pretty outraged about all the outrage: There really is a politics of outrage, and it has spread like a cancer throughout the body politic. It’s become the default currency of political conversation. […] Outrage is the easiest type of story for journalists to write […]

Glenn Carle had an excellent op-ed in monday’s Washington Post echoing a point that John Mueller and Jim Fallows, among others, have made in the past: the terrorist threat just isn’t very threatening. While Mueller brought a social scientific approach, and Fallows relied on counterinsurgency experts, Carle brings his background in the CIA’s clandestine service, […]

So I suppose all the commentary about the possibility that Barack Obama would pick Jim Webb as his running-mate was much ado about nothing. Today Webb released a pretty Shermanesque statement denying any interest in the spot. He states, “Last week I communicated to Senator Obama and his presidential campaign my firm intention to remain […]

John McCain, valiant straight-talker that he is, strongly defended his record on economic issues today, denying a reporter’s accusation that he’s admitted to a lack of expertise on the topic. He asserted, “I’m very strong on the economy. I understand it.” Of course he does! For example, he certainly has more experience in the Savings […]

As Dana noted, Barack Obama came out forcefully against the proposed anti-marriage constitutional amendment in California this weekend. But, though I think this is an encouraging move, I have to agree with Rick Gorka, a McCain spokesman, that it does represent a flip-flop. The language of the amendment reads, “Only marriage between a man and […]