roger-ollman

BROOKS PAN-GLOSSIANISM: Poor David Brooks. With John Tierney off the New York Times op-ed page, Brooks will now have to bear the brunt of Times readers’ frustration at unsubstantiated pan-glossian nonesense (the only other remaing target being Thomas Friedman.) His Sunday column was a perfect example. Brooks complains, “no major Democrat today speaks as confidently […]

HILLARY’S MOMMY PROBLEM: Now that Hillary’s announced, the media will surely start wondering how her gender will affect her electoral prospects. I think some interesting clues are in my Campus Progress colleague Dana Goldstein’s Prospect web piece from Friday. Dana argues that female politicians like Hillary and Nancy Pelosi may actually pay a price for […]

BRAZIL, OBESE OR ANOREXIC?: The New York Times had a typical trend piece this Sunday on the rising cult of thinness and the consequent tragic uptick in anorexia among young women. The article devotes much space to contrasting this development with Brazillian culture’s usual tendency to consider a plumper physique more beautiful. Ironically the Times […]

MCCAIN’S FALLACY: Thanks to Greg for effectively skewering John McCain‘s faulty logic in arguing that because almost everyone agrees that we should have sent a large enough force to effectively occupy three years ago we must send more troops now. In addition to all the points Greg made about why this doesn’t necessarily make sense, […]

HOW YOU LIKE MCCAIN NOW?: Via TPM John McCain has descended to new lows in slavish devotion to appeasing the malignant forces he proudly declared he would not pander to in 2000. McCain is appearing in commercials in Arizona that support an anti-marriage equality ballot initiative. Funny how you don’t hear all those “liberals” for […]

CHICKENHAWK ALLEN’S SMEAR: There are few spectacles more aggravating in American politics than seeing chickenhawks impugn the morality or patriotism of a veteran for telling of the horrors of war. Senator Macacawitz’s current attempt to swiftboat his opponent, Jim Webb, is a case in point. Allen put out a press release compiling disturbing scenes from […]

GOP RED STATE STRATEGY: Even though Stuart Rothenberg took issue with the New York Times piece on Monday that asserted that the RNC is giving up on the Ohio Senate race and shifting resources to Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia, I think the piece raises an interesting point. Republicans are now dumping money into Mark Foley‘s […]

Just a funny thought: if Alan Schlesinger were a third-party candidate polling at the same pathetic numbers he currently is, he wouldn’t be included in the CT Senate debate going on right now. I’m not an advocate of third parties, but it does seem to me that this institutional bias towards the two major parties […]

Raw Story has just confirmed that Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) has sent flirtatious emails to a male 16 year old Capitol page. Foley, who as Raw Story dryly notes, “has long marketed himself as a protector of children from sexual predation,” asked the teenager to send him pictures. As Raw Story points out, “In 2003, […]

While Matt is Katrina vanden Heuvel about the Democrats’ plan to offer a resolution demanding Donald Rumsfeld‘s resignation. Of course it’s understandable, particularly after Rumsfeld’s odious recent comments. But scapegoating Rumsfeld is a classic example of the incompetence dodge. Should Rumsfeld actually be replaced, the assumption that he was the primary cause of the Iraq […]