DEBATING THE DEBATE. Brian Beutler, currently residing in Argentina and thus, I think, ineligible to comment on American politics, breaks a host of international treaties and previews tonight’s Democratic debate. My prediction, for what it’s worth: Clinton is a punching bag, loses badly, and suffers the only noticeable dip in the polls. Obama says little […]
Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein is a former Prospect writer and current editor-in-chief at Vox. His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Guardian, The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, Slate, and The Columbia Journalism Review. He’s been a commentator on MSNBC, CNN, NPR, and more.
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Are We Better Than A Monarchy?
In comments to the Prince Charles post below, Glenn writes: Yes, by all means, let’s celebrate [Charles]. He has only spent his life idly sucking at the public teat while helping to perpetuate an utterly indefensible system for picking the head of state (not to mention male-preference primogeniture) that most modern states threw overboard centures […]
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In Praise of Prince Charles
This is one of my more peculiar hobby horses, but let’s take a moment to non-ironically appreciate Prince Charles. I came around to the Prince back when he married Camilla Parker Bowles. For all the scorn heaped on the couple, they always struck me as a particularly touching love story. They’d been together, in some […]
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CONSISTENCY. I…
CONSISTENCY. I don’t know who tipped Atrios off to this David Broder column defending Richard Nixon in 1969, but it’s a gem. It’s also a reminder that no sentient pundit could maintain the consistent deference Broder shows towards the establishment — not given how often the establishment has failed the country and humiliated its supporters […]
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ONLY A FEW…
ONLY A FEW YEARS TOO LATE. Was just listening to Dana Perrino (I think) fend off questions from the White House press corps in advance of Bush vetoing the withdrawal bill. It’s stunning how differently the press treats Bush’s actions than they did a few years ago, how much less deference they offer his motives. […]
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META-OBAMA. This…
META-OBAMA. This is the best column David Brooks has written in a very long time: The question is, aside from rejecting the extremes, has Obama thought through a practical foreign policy doctrine of his own � a way to apply his Niebuhrian instincts? That question is hard to answer because he loves to have conversations […]
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The Dangers of Listening to Music at the Dentist
I remarked awhile back that I took my iPod in during a root canal and found the experience much improved. In recent weeks, however, the downside has clarified: I can no longer listen to Dismemberment Plan’s “The City” without feeling like someone’s drilling into my molar. Which is a shame, because I like that song.
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Your World in Charts: Uninsured Edition
As of late, we’ve had some commenters hanging around demanding we redefine the word “uninsured,” attempting to downplay the problem of lack of coverage, denying all widely accepted measures of the uninsured, and, when that fails, writing the uninsured off as statistical artifacts of momentary lapses in coverage. Soon enough, they suggest, insurance is procured; […]
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Dispatches From When The Country Went Crazy: Chapter III
Digby reminds me of this seminal Matt Taibbi article on one of the final pre-war press conferences: Particularly revolting was the spectacle of the cream of the national press corps submitting politely to the indignity of obviously pre-approved questions, with Bush not even bothering to conceal that the affair was scripted. Abandoning the time-honored pretense […]
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Neat Trick
Via Norbizness comes this revealing little story on why the Iraqi casualty numbers mentioned by the administration seem to be dropping, even as the violence appears to be getting worse. “Car bombs and other explosive devices have killed thousands of Iraqis in the past three years,” McClatchy newspapers reports, “but the administration doesn’t include them […]
