Ezra Klein

Matt’s explosion of opprobrium towards my earlier post on Dean deserves a response. Suffice to say there are two schools of thought on Dean’s ascension to the chairmanship: mine, which is that Dean is a highly effective media representative and his primary role should be spokesperson, and Matt’s, which is that Dean is an enormously […]

Unlike Brad Plumer, I’m going to evince no shame in declaring myself objectively pro-Starbucks — I love the place. And you know what? I don’t even drink coffee. Yep — shout it from the mountain, this decaffeinated blogger thinks independents are overrated and everyone should enjoy a local emanation of the Seattle-based giant. Starbucks offers […]

Speaking of Dean — and freaks who read the blog from the bottom-up will know I am — anyone else a bit surprised at the Chairman’s decision to treat the press like he’s a groundhog and they’re his shadow? The rationale for making him chair rested pretty heavily on his facility in front of the […]

Brad Plumer’s post comparing religiously-motivated candidates with candidates attempting to appear religiously-motivated is all sorts of good, read it. But it touches on a personal crusade of mine, that “religious” is nothing more than a heuristic for moral. For Dean to strut on stage and begin talking about the Sadducees is a bit insane — […]

And the Bugman’s Shakespearian fall continues. Now it’s the Wall Street Journal unsheathing the knives. The Wall Street Journal!

Well, kids, it has once again been real, but it’s time for me to go. As always, your comments were thoroughly enlightening and a blast to read. Thanks for putting up with me. Here’s hoping Ezra rocked some ass in that pillow fight deal he had going on. They have things like that here in […]

Dan Drezner takes issue with Richard Clarke’s NYTimes piece on Iran. Says the Drez: One would think that this would be the right moment for Clarke, a genuine expert on this question, to introduce his own thoughts on the matter. Instead, we get a “national dialogue” cop-out. That’s a close second behind “mobilize political willpower” […]

This is discouraging: Despite recommendations by Army investigators, commanders have decided not to prosecute 17 American soldiers implicated in the deaths of three prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, according to a new accounting released Friday by the Army.Investigators had recommended that all 17 soldiers be charged in the cases, according to […]

Andrew Sullivan’s unsurprisingly saccharine piece about the Ashley Smith case symbolizes everything I love and hate about religion. Sullivan gets a big part of it right. Ashley Smith’s story is astounding, both for her courage, and the fact that her courage didn’t result in her lying dead in an alleyway. And even I, a fairly […]

NYPress’ Matt Taibbi gets it just about right re: the “National Security Democrats”: The Democratic party leadership’s persistent and bizarre campaign of self-condemnation and Republican bootlicking is one of those things that, on its face, makes very little logical sense. It makes cultural sense; we have come to expect that the cultural figures we call […]