J. Goodrich

MORE ON KRISTOL’S PINK SPECTACLES. I wonder where I could buy some of those. Opinion pieces are usually dim and pessimistic musings, but Bill Kristol has found a way round that problem. As Dana pointed out earlier, he did it by donning the pink glasses and by hugely ignoring any and all evidence which would […]

CUT-ME-OWN-THROAT DIBBLER. C.M.O.T. Dibbler is a character in Terry Pratchett‘s science fiction books, which are all set in a place called Discworld. Dibbler is not really a criminal but an entrepreneur. From the back of the Discworld books: Usually seen selling some kind of food in a bun (no matter how questionable its origins), C.M.O.T. […]

LET THEM GO TO EMERGENCY ROOMS. (That is my feeble attempt to find something like “Let Them Eat Cake” for the title of this post.) Dan Froomkin gives us this beautiful quote from the president on the topic of access to health care: Bush spent a fair amount of time talking about health care yesterday, […]

WHAT GOOD NEWS. The Chicago Sun-Times is turning left: The tabloid that shifted toward political conservatism under the brief ownership of Rupert Murdoch more than two decades ago now says that it is “rethinking our stance on several issues, including the most pressing issue facing Americans today: Bush’s war in Iraq.” Under marching orders from […]

THE VITTER AMENDMENT. Louisiana Senator David Vitter has come clean about once having been a client of a Washington D.C. escort service: “This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible,” Vitter said Monday in a printed statement. “Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness […]

A SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH CARE SYSTEM AND TERRORISM. Fox News has joined the health care financing debate in their usual sensational way. Neil Cavuto asks whether a single-payer health care system would make it easier for terrorist physicians to enter the United States, and finds someone to argue that this would indeed be the case. Josh […]

IN THE BACKWARDS WORLD. The President’s Independence Day speech contained this important reminder, one we have heard many, many times before: Bush said victory in Iraq will require “more patience, more courage and more sacrifice.” “If we were to quit Iraq before the job is done, the terrorists we are fighting would not declare victory […]

THIS SCABROUS WORLD. I read David Brooks‘ take on Bush commuting Scooter Libby‘s sentence and learned a new word: scabrous. It can mean rough, difficult to handle or salacious. It can even mean “covered with scales.” Brooks uses it in the opening paragraph of his piece: In retrospect, Plamegate was a farce in five acts. […]

RAISED EYEBROWS. That’s how the London Times describes the reaction of the American government to Gordon Brown‘s new cabinet, given that Brown has appointed a few ministers who are not keen on Bush. The whole article is interesting, but I was struck mostly by the careful analysis in it. Is it just my imagination or […]