Ezra Klein

This gem comes from the June 10th briefing: As I said, the President is always willing to workwith those who want to find common ground, and try to get things doneand work in a constructive way. And part of that means focusing on howwe can all elevate the discourse. The President has elevated thediscourse. The […]

If, as the AP is speculating, Sen. John Cornyn gets nominated for the Supreme Court, he’d better watch his back. After all, just a few months ago there was this guy — a Senator, no less! — named John Cornyn arguing that it’s totally understandable for folks to just be cappin’ judges. So Cornyn be […]

Pandagon’s doing a blogathon for Amnesty International. Check ’em out.

Vie Econbrowser, this map showing unemployment rates by county is really very interesting (click on it for full size version): How’re Nebraska and Kansas doing so well? Nevada and Texas seem in good shape as well. Ohio and its neighbors, not so much. Oregon’s in terrible straits and, let’s be honest, poor Michigan. Anyway — […]

Even though the whole argument about denouncing/regulating/ignoring pop culture is petering out, I want to quote this Mark Schmitt post as both the best statement I’ve seen on the subject and a perfect, though far more eloquent, articulation of my views on it: First, this is one of those issues about which the only reasonablereaction […]

Reviewing John Harris’s The Survivor*, Alan Ehrahalt makes a point worth taking on : Roosevelt made enormous and sometimes reckless changes in the Americangovernment and economy, and when his critics loathed him for it, heloathed them back. ”They are unanimous in their hate for me” he saidof them in his 1936 re-election campaign, ”and I […]

You know you’re a nerd when your breaks from studying are to write about health policy. But then, I do know I’m a nerd, so no problems on that front. This study break is brought to you by Jon Cohn, who wrote an excellent column on Wal-Mart’s attitude towards health care (which is, essentially, that […]

One thing I really don’t like about the health care debate is the “complexity test”. After Clinton’s health care plan failed, in part due to its monstrous incomprehensibility, folks began quickly dismissing anything that hints at being hard to explain. Unfortunately, health care is a tough issue and the policy solutions may end up taking […]

There are just some quarters determined to kick your ass. Some quarters when you get a midterm back, see that your score is too low, read the comments that say “you know the material but write unclearly”, realize it’s the other way around, and finally get a fraction of your missing points back because your […]

EJ Dionne’s column on the Kerry critics, the many Democrats who happily bash Kerry now that the election is over, rings a bit too true. So, as part of my plea bargain, let me say that Dionne is exactly right on this: The three debates were the only moments in the campaign in which Kerry’s […]