Ezra Klein

I’m with Matt on the Iraqi elections, a day that will go down in history but be forgotten the morning after. Like the June 30th handover, this is a largely symbolic event whose success — given the constraints of Sunni non-participation — will be forgotten by nightfall. At the moment, the streets seems blissfully clear […]

Digby’s got a predictably terrific post on the need for more telegenic, effective, and conscientious media representation among the Dems. Like me, Digby has latched onto the heuristics of elections as the crucial component. Terrorism, the economy, social values — these things matter substantively, but they generally manifest in predictably symbolic, superficial, ways. As Matt […]

Continuing his historical habit of accumulating surprise endorsements, Dean got the nod from Harold Ickes this morning. Ickes, of course, is cleaved to the Clintons, and his emergence at Dean’s side effectively ends all speculation that Hillary is standing athwart his candidacy yelling “Stop!”. Here’s the money quote or, more to the point, the money […]

Jack Shafer’s decided to take on the dicks who tout the blogs and I, as a blogger, could not agree more: When the Times’ Abramson asked rhetorically if the conference bloggers had any idea how much it cost to maintain a news bureau in Baghdad, the supreme confidence of a couple of bloggers fractured into […]

Clinton has some wise words on Iran: He called Iran a far more formidable foe than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and a “perplexing” country split between “two governments”: a hard-core minority that controls security forces and a reformist, pro-Western majority. A hasty and bloody military strike might alienate that majority, he said. “We ought not to […]

So Republicans are complaining that Times piece on Chile’s privatize Social Security system was biased against privatization. They’re shrieking about robocalls telling constituents that so-and-so wants to privatize Social Security. They’re picking up, abandoning and then demonizing terms so quick that copy editors are left in the corner with a martini and tears. Does it […]

Jerome Corsi, coauthor of the SwiftVets book, is moving to Massachusetts to challenge Kerry in 2008. And I can’t imagine how sweet it will feel for Kerry when he electorally crushes this lying carpetbagger.

Evan Bayh voted against Rice? Seriously? He might as well have printed up “Bayh ’08!” stickers and plastered the Senate podium with them. You know who’s not running? Lieberman. His argument that Rice’s great virtue is “the world knows she has the President’s trust and confidence” is severely lacking in Joementu . What if we […]

I agree with Justin that Israel’s brinksmanship towards Iran has some US backing behind it. We’re a bit tied up at the moment, so they’re providing the promise of force that our people, and resources, won’t allow. But the Bush Administration is making the same mistake with Iran that they’ve made everywhere else. Bush himself, […]

The Washington Post has a great article on Democracy training in Iraq. While most commentary is focused on macro issues like ethnic tensions, tribal loyalties and the whims of the insurgency, it’s easy to forget about the basic glitches, like the fact that none of these candidates have ever run for office before. And it’s […]