Matthew Yglesias

PARTY OF DEATH REVIEWS. About a week and a half ago, I noted conservative whining that liberals weren’t reviewing Ramesh Ponnuru‘s The Party of Death and promised that if the publisher or author of the book would take the simple challenge of sending me a review copy I’d gladly step up to the plate. So […]

EDGING TOWARD A POSITION. One of the most curious political strategies I’ve seen in some time has been Mark Warner‘s apparent belief that he can run for president without taking a position on the Iraq War. Today, though, he starts edging toward one: Mr. Warner spoke empathetically of his potential rivals who as senators voted […]

TERRORISTS: WHAT’S THE DEAL? I agree with Mike — if I were a terrorism consultant or what have you, I’d tell my loyal jihadis to forget all about New York. To forget about monuments, for that matter. Probably even to forget about bombs. I would just try and organize as many attacks as possible, no […]

WE USED TO BE FRIENDS. “They crush them with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion,” according to Iraq’s new Prime Minister, “This is completely unacceptable.” The crushing and killing just on suspicion are, he says, being done by the American military. And based on recent reports, there’s obviously some truth to this perspective. […]

BUT HOW MANY TOILETS ARE THERE? New York City most certainly does contain monuments and icons — especially if, as I’m given to understand, Jacksonville’s Alltel Stadium counts as one — but it may suffer from a more serious threat: toilets. Your fact of the day, courtesy of John Mueller is this: “Outside of 2001, […]

FOREIGN AID AND JIHAD. I really, really think we ought to boost foreign aid, but I’m uncomfortable with this sort of analogy: Truman also believed that spreading democracy required combating economic despair. He allocated between 2.5 and 5 percent of U.S. national income over four years to the Marshall Plan, in the belief that unless […]

IRAQ SAFER THAN D.C. My roommate got mugged last night right in front of our house and someone was shot and killed across the street about a month ago. So is Peter King right that Iraq is less violent than Washington, D.C.? I doubt it. King says he calculates the annualized Iraqi civilian death rate […]

CHOOSE YOUR SELLOUTS. I always think articles about Harold Ford are interesting, because he’s an interesting guy, and yesterday’s piece in The New York Times was no exception. But they never seem to get at what is, to me, the essential oddness of Ford’s political persona. The basic Ford narrative is that he’s an ambitious […]

SOME PAULSON SKEPTICISM. Reaction to Henry Paulson‘s appointment as Treasury Secretary has, thus far, been boringly positive. Fortunately, Max Sawicky rides to the rescue with a strident critique. –Matthew Yglesias

THE GOOD NEWS. While I was on vacation yesterday, I don’t think any of my colleagues noted the ongoing developments in the Haditha massacre story. This is one of those things that makes you appreciate the old-fashioned print news media which, for all its flaws, can bring things like this to light and leaves your […]