Sam Rosenfeld

MORE ON TAP AND THE WAR. This’ll be the last time I discuss Brendan O’Neill‘s column about TAP‘s alleged pro-war editorial history, promise. But, re-reading this October 2002 piece written by editors Paul Starr, Robert Kuttner, and Harold Meyerson, I’m pretty damned impressed by its prescience and feel compelled to highlight some passages: … No […]

PROTECTIONISM. If you haven’t already, read Dean on copyright. –Sam Rosenfeld

WHAT AMNESIA? Brendan O’Neill has a column in The Guardian‘s “Comment is Free” section about this magazine’s history of commentary on the Iraq war. For anyone who fell for wannabe president Hillary Clinton’s claim last week that she did not vote for pre-emptive war in Iraq, and thus she is really more of a peacenick […]

HILLARY AND WEAKNESS. In the past week alone, four columns in the Washington Post have raised the issue of Hillary Clinton�s 2002 Iraq war resolution vote, and the problems it is causing her and her campaign: Following Clinton around New Hampshire, Ruth Marcus concludes that, �Democratic primary voters don�t want Kerryesque parsing. �Let the conversation […]

WAYWARD DOWN SOUTH. Several Tapped commenters have asked me to respond to Bob Moser‘s recent piece in The Nation, “The Way Down South.” Logistics and schedules permitting, Bob and I will be debating his piece and related issues next month at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I will also have a short, 700-word […]

NOT-SO-SILLY! Kevin Drum rounds up all the recent right-wing-fuelled ” dimwit stories” and faux scandals concerning the Democratic presidential contenders, the Nancy Pelosi jet flap included among them. Matt argues that we need to take this crap seriously and not dismiss it as the unavoidable muck of the political “silly season.” But when it comes […]

NELSON POLSBY, RIP. Political scientist Nelson Polsby died yesterday. The Post‘s obit is here, and I actually endorse everything J-Pod says here (where I heard the news). I’m much more of a skeptic about the structure of American political institutions compared to those elsewhere, but certainly they had one of their ablest — and funniest […]

GLASS HOUSES, CONT’D. Garance‘s disputes notwithstanding, I’d certainly recommend reading Perlstein‘s piece. I don’t think the important concern vis a vis the Jay Carney example is the technical factuality of various claims so much as the regurgitation of rote and inaccurate political narratives, against which the blogosphere has finally — and helpfully — facilitated some […]

DEBATING “DEBATING THE DEBATE DEBATE.” Over at The Plank, Mike Crowley discusses this week’s stalled Senate debate on the Warner anti-surge resolution and, contra today’s New York Times editorial, questions whether anything’s really lost by us not getting to see senators bloviate and speechify about the war on the floor. My point is slightly tangential […]

OBAMA WILL WIN MISSISSIPPI! A final thought on my run-in with former DNC chair Don Fowler last Friday, specifically as it relates to the piece I will be publishing shortly in The Nation in response to Bob Moser�s provocative essay about a potential, economic populism-led renaissance for Democrats in the South. (By which, of course, […]