MEANWHILE IN AFGHANISTAN. I’ve avoided commenting on the apparently deteriorating situation in Afghanistan because I don’t understand the dynamics over there very well, but it is worth noting that the situation certainly does seem to be getting bad: “Suspected Taliban guerrillas in the southern province of Helmand ambushed and killed 32 people on Sunday, all […]
Matthew Yglesias
Matthew Yglesias is a senior editor at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a former Prospect staff writer, and the author of Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats.
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WHEN THE BEST…
WHEN THE BEST IS NOT ENOUGH. Excellent, a chance to tread over some more Iraq/incompetence terrain. Kevin Drum writes: Actually, not everyone seems to have realized this. In fact, it’s a point of considerable controversy, isn’t it? Sam Rosenfeld and Matt Yglesias made the opposite point explicitly in “The Incompetence Dodge,” arguing that “administrative bungling […]
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The Case Against Principles
Ned Lamont’s primary challenge in Connecticut to Joe Lieberman struck me from the beginning as a little quixotic and ill-motivated. For all Lieberman’s sins — his disgusting take on Abu Ghraib (“Those who murdered and burned and humiliated four Americans in Fallujah a while ago never received an apology from anybody”) especially comes to mind […]
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MAKING NICE. Just…
MAKING NICE. Just to avoid the appearance that Ezra and I are waging some kind of anti-Democracy jihad, let me say I liked these two book reviews a great deal, and nobody can accuse Jedediah Purdy of failing to put forward bold, outside-the-box ideas here. Indeed, that’s so bold and outside the box I really […]
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SHOULD I JOIN…
SHOULD I JOIN THE ARMY? If you haven’t heard, the much-rumored Democracy: A Journal of Ideas is now up and running, with all content seemingly available online for the low, low price of a somewhat cumbersome registration process. It “will serve as a place where ideas can be developed and important debates can be spurred.” […]
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ABOVE THE LAW….
ABOVE THE LAW. An informative but odd Washington Post editorial about detention policy notes all the ways the post-9-11 Bush administration has violated pre-9-11 rules against abusing prisoners, then notes all the ways the Bush administration has sought to evade post-Abu Ghraib efforts to get them to comply with the law, and then concludes with […]
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SAVE AMERICA: BAN…
SAVE AMERICA: BAN FLUFF. And here I was earlier this morning complaining that there’s nothing worth blogging about when Jacob Sullum comes to the rescue: A Massachusetts legislator, allegedly representing the very district where Fluff was invented, wants to ban the stuff from public school cafeterias. “A Fluff sandwich as the main course of a […]
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MOTIVATIONISM. Picking up…
MOTIVATIONISM. Picking up on Greg Sargent‘s latest post on the media, let me note that there’s something rather illogical about the habit of dismissing media criticism from progressive blogs or, say, Media Matters on the grounds that it’s “partisan” in its motivations. After all, what’s motive got to do with it? If The New York […]
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The Price Is Wrong
On September 11, 2001, the United States was hit by devastating terrorist attacks perpetrated by a transnational terrorist network. Less than a year later, it was apparent that the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq, allegedly as part of the response. Famously, selling this agenda involved a highly deceptive effort to link the two issues. […]
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IDEALISM AND SUCH….
IDEALISM AND SUCH. Writing like this from Richard Just makes me suspicious. Ostensibly, the argument is that “there are plenty of ways short of military action that America can oppose tyranny in Iran and elsewhere” and that we should do so. The post doesn’t, however, name any such ways, cite any arguments that such ways […]
