J. Goodrich

ME, A POLITICAL EXTREMIST? No way! I alone inhabit the sane middle. A more serious inquiry into what constitutes political extremism can be found at the Swampland where Joe Klein gives us two lists of characteristics for such extremism, one for the right and one for the left. But they both end with this: –regularly […]

THE ENEMY WITHIN. For George WIll it includes labor unions. His recent column is an elegant plea on behalf of corporations and against the proposed Employee Free Choice Act which would allow unionization of a firm without the secret ballots currently required. Will believes that unions are pure evil, and by pretending that I knew […]

TEH FUNNY. That “teh” is intentional, to show how well I know Internet slang. And what is “teh funny” for the day? My candidate is the Conservapedia, a new rival for Wikipedia. Now, Wikipedia has problems with accuracy and non-bias, so perhaps it’s not so surprising that alternatives would crop up, and this is the […]

THE POOR ARE GETTING POORER. So suggests a new McClatchy Newspapers analysis of the 2005 Census: The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005. That’s 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period. McClatchy’s review also found statistically significant […]

GLENN BECK AND DINESH D’SOUZA AGREE WITH BIN LADEN. It is our horrible promiscuity that upsets right-thinking Muslims everywhere, and both Beck and D’Souza kinda sorta see their point. Here is Beck: BECK: You know, there`s a new poll out that Muslims, the higher educated Muslims in the Middle East are more likely to be […]

WHAT POLLS TELL. A new poll seems to suggest that Americans like the surge in Iraq, after all: In a dramatic finding, a new poll shows a solid majority of Americans still wants to win the war in Iraq – and keep U.S. troops there until the Baghdad government can take over. Strong majorities also […]

PLAYING THE RELIGION CARD. Atrios has had a week of posts on religion and its role in politics, and in particular in progressive or liberal politics. Today’s posts are especially interesting, having to do with the proper way of incorporating the religious left into the movement. So sad that the religious right has successfully appropriated […]

WE ARE THE DEADLY WARRIORS. David Brooks’s recent column (behind a firewall but I summarize it here sufficiently, I hope) on how the conservatives are correct about human nature is hilarious. In short, he argues that we humans (though I think he really means male humans) are malevolent brutes, intent on status competition and clubbing […]

A MODEST QUESTION. To ruthlessly steal from Scott and his earlier post about the Edwards bloggers and Joan Walsh of the Salon: I have a question, and it has to do with this quote by Walsh: Clinton hired Peter Daou, who’d run John Kerry’s Internet operation and later licensed his Daou Report to Salon (it […]

TWO ANTI-CATHOLIC VULGAR TRASH-TALKING BIGOTS. That is how William Donohue of the Catholic League described Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, two bloggers who were hired by the John Edwards campaign. Donohue then demanded that they be fired. This did not happen, though both bloggers have recently resigned from the campaign. That the New York Times […]