Paul Waldman

Greg Sargent points out that in the now-infamous Pew poll in which nearly a fifth of Americans think Barack Obama is a Muslim, 60 percent of them say they learned it from the media. So should we blame the media? No, for two reasons. The first is this: Who is this “media”? When people choose […]

Politico has an interesting article titled “The New Battle: What It Means to Be an American,” that manages to say barely a word about what it means to be an American, or what different people believe it means to be an American. But anyway, the point of the piece is that the right is losing […]

(Flickr/aldenjewell) Back in 2008, when Chrysler and GM were facing bankruptcy, conservatives started a campaign against a government bailout. In order to convince people it was a bad idea, they went around telling everyone that autoworkers were lazy and overpaid, trying to make the workers into the villain of the story; the key piece of […]

If you walk around any city in America (and a lot of other countries) these days, you’ll be moving from they eye of one surveillance camera to another. Some belong to the authorities, some belong to businesses, but they create a web in which we’re all being watched. It’s hard not to feel a little […]

Rep. Darrell Issa, who will become a subpoena-issuing machine should Republicans take back the House, is apparently mad about Recovery.gov, the website where the administration puts information about the stimulus. It’s pretty snappy for a government website, with all kinds of animations and interactive tools. But a new report Issa has issued says “Recovery.gov became […]

In most sci-fi movies, the problem with the long time periods required for interstellar travel is solved by putting those traversing the stars into some kind of “stasis,” often in a comfy pod. Upon waking, they rub their necks, stretch their arms, and within about 30 seconds are good to go fight aliens, despite having […]

For a while now, I’ve been wondering whether a prominent Republican with something to lose — like a 2012 presidential candidate — might come out and condemn the ugly turn the GOP is taking, with its new obsessions over the Islamic center near Ground Zero and repealing the 14th Amendment so little brown kids born […]

One thing people often say about libertarians is, “Well, there are some things I disagree with them about, but I admire their consistency.” Supposedly, libertarians have a pure philosophy, and they’re willing to take unpopular stands in the service of it. That stands in contrast to, say, conservatives who talk a lot about “getting government […]

You’ve probably been asking yourself, “What do the candidates running for City Council in Grand Forks think about the Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero?” No? You haven’t been asking that? Well why the heck not? It’s not quite the Grand Forks City Council, but Rick Scott, a candidate for the GOP nomination for governor […]