J. Goodrich

ANGER, VITRIOL AND DISDAIN. When Willie Geist asked Joe Klein why politicians feel the need to “pander” to bloggers, Klein said this: Well, two M’s: money and megaphones. You know, the blogosphere has demonstrated a real ability to raise money for favored candidates, so there’s that. And, second of all, they have a very powerful […]

“PROTECTING AMERICA IS OUR MOST SOLEMN OBLIGATION.” This is what President Bush said on Saturday when he urged Congress to approve the new wiretapping bill. And the Congress obliged him. Yet even this wasn’t enough, as is clear from the president’s response to the passing of the bill: While I appreciate the leadership it took […]

WHOM ARE YOU CALLING EFFETE, MATT? I’m referring to this comment: For now Thompson is chilling, just chilling, on his own smokers’ bench until September. Effete TAPPED bloggers will be on hand to chronicle his every red-blooded twitch until then. Sure, I have chronicled some of these twitches, but I can also do one-armed push-ups. […]

PREVENTING DISASTERS. The Minnesota bridge collapse may have absolutely nothing to do with the topic of this post but it made me think again about the particular problems the political system creates in attempts to prevent similar disasters. For example, consider an elected politician who notices that the area’s infrastructure is in poor shape and […]

ON BOOBAGE. You can now tell your grandchildren that you learned that word here. It is a good term for what is happening at MSNBC. On July 30, nearly half an hour of the MSNBC news day was devoted to the discussion of Hillary Clinton‘s cleavage. If you happened to see the picture starting all […]

GAMING ELECTIONS. Researchers have again successfully broken into computerized election systems, this time in California and in Florida. The exercises show that most of the commonly used machines have problems and that it is easy to alter vote totals or to reassign votes. The bill sponsored by Rush D. Holt in the House is not […]

FOOD CHAIN GAMES. The FDA is planning a decisive response to the recent worries about tainted foodstuffs: It’s going to get rid of seven of the current thirteen FDA laboratories, including the only one that specializes in detecting radioactive elements in food. Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach defends the move as a way to bring the […]

ONLY THE POOR… can run for the president of the United States on the platform of fighting poverty. That’s the only conclusion I can reach from Marc Ambinder‘s blog post, which is on the ever-popular topic of John Edwards‘s $400 haircuts, but this time mixed with the question why Mitt Romney‘s $300 face paint doesn’t […]

TALKING BACK TO MICHAEL MOORE. The responses to Michael Moore‘s documentary Sicko have been as swift as may be expected. It was heartening to see the media suddenly combing through all the evidence they had been given. Even Sanjay Gupta accused Moore of fudging his data! I don’t remember Gupta showing much critical acumen before. […]