Mori Dinauer

Howard Kurtz attempts to figure out the “Obama Conundrum”: “Obviously, Obama would be riding higher with a 7 percent unemployment rate than the one just below double digits. But it’s also clear that, for whatever combination of reasons, the Nobel Prize winner has had trouble connecting with much of the public.” As the man says, […]

Jonathan Zasloff considers the possibility that Republicans might, just might, do a little soul searching in the event they fail to take over one or both houses of Congress: “But if the GOP does take back either or both Houses of Congress, the Movement will see it as vindication. If it fails, perhaps someone on […]

Happy 19th Amendment Anniversary Day! To celebrate, here’s a shorter version of what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce thinks: there was more equality when “one partner” “chose” to stay home to cook, clean, and reproduce. Or this post from The Corner on the 19th Amendment titled, “Some Things Do Not Get Better with Time.” It […]

I had been operating under the assumption that our current “mosque controversy” was structurally similar to the “controversy” which erupted from the decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a federal court in New York City. But Dave Weigel has rediscovered an even better comparison: The Dubai Ports scandal of 2006. Then, as now, Democrats […]

Responding to his unhinged 2010 opponent, Harry Reid has decided to break with President Obama and come out against building the Cordoba Community Center in the vicinity of where the Twin Towers were felled. Now I thought that Reid had a sound strategy for re-election: portray his opponent as too extreme to be in the […]

To riff off of David Weigel‘s article explaining why crazy Republican candidates aren’t necessarily doomed this fall, what we’re seeing in these candidates is an element of uncertainty added to what would ordinarily be a fairly predictable midterm election. Harry Reid, for instance, was toast until he successfully engineered Sharron Angle as an opponent. That […]

There’s some debate in libertarian circles over whether libertarian-ish candidates are running away from the libertarian label, mostly prompted by this Rand Paul op-ed. David Boaz is optimistic that the public sympathizes with the libertarian agenda and Matt Welch sees progress being made given the “unsated anti-government sentiment sweeping the land.” Meanwhile, John Quiggin throws […]

David Leonhardt‘s big-picture look at the state of the economy correctly points out that “the unemployed” comprises a largely stable group of people. This should concern Democrats, Andrew Sabl points out, because unlike the mass of unemployed people during the 1981 recession — whom the Reagan administration completely ignored — those in the current recession […]

I stopped reading Daily Kos years ago, but it’s sad to see that founder Markos Moulitsas‘ newest book is not only superficially similar to Jonah Goldberg‘s Liberal Fascism but substantively similar: “In American Taliban, Markos Moulitsas pulls no punches as he compares how the Republican Party and Islamic radicals maintain similar worldviews and tactics. Moutlitsas […]

David Broder keeps substituting his political preferences for statements of fact: “The Senate tends to be at its best when the party ratios are relatively close — say 55 to 45 — rather than as lopsided as they have been during Obama‘s first two years.” What does “at its best” mean? Why does he call […]