Blog: TAPPED

THE RIGHT REARS ITS UGLY HEAD: All you need to know about the right wing base is summed up by their adoration for Ann Coulter. Last year at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) they were handing out giant posters that featured Coulter with a come-hither look. This year there was a massive line at […]

I BLAME JAMES MADISON. At her other online venue, J. Goodrich has a good discussion of American political culture and its role in the fact that the United States maintains an irrational health care system that provides much narrower coverage for much more money (including more state money) than other comparable liberal democracies. While this […]

POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: IT’S THE ECONOMY (AGAIN), STUPID. Terence Samuel suggests that maybe the early presidential contenders should spend a bit more time focusing on the economy as an election issue. By the time November 2008 rolls around, Iraq may not be as important as we think. —The Editors

I LIKE TO BE IN AMERICA. Sam Brownback‘s speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference now ongoing in Washington D.C. raises an interesting question: Shouldn’t there be some requirement that you can correctly pronounce the name of the country whose president you’re running to be? Brownback just called our fine nation “Ah-mair-ee-cuh.” Twice. –Garance Franke-Ruta

FEMINISM AND EX ANTE HOUSEWORK STANDARDS. Matt interprets data adduced by Jessica and finds more evidence for my assertion that the typical arrangement of housework in households occupied by heterosexual couples reflects unjust gender balances combined with actually different ex ante standards of cleanliness/tidiness (which are related to said inequalities, of course, but a feminist […]

SOUTHERN LIVING. Sometimes we forget about Hillary Clinton‘s years in Arkansas. But the new Time magazine poll that shows she is crushing Barack Obama in the South, the region where she spent much of her adult life, should make us remember. Race and her greater appeal to party moderates than to liberals probably are factors […]

POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: UNDER SURVEILLANCE. Noy Thrupkaew reviews the Oscar-winning German film The Lives of Others, which chronicles how an agent with the Stasi secret police finds himself at odds with the East German system when he becomes personally invested in a artistic couple he’s charged with monitoring. Thrupkaew says the movie “invites us […]

AS THE POLL TURNS… It’s good, every once in awhile, to dig through a comprehensive poll and see where the country’s at. For instance, I wasn’t aware that only 20 out of every 100 people approved of George W. Bush’s job performance. I thought he’d have at least, oh, four more supporters in there. And […]

TAKING POLICE. Fourteen Iraqi policemen are reported missing, and a statement on the Internet claims they were taken in retaliation for the alleged rape of 20-year-old Sabrine al-Janabi — the woman Maliki publicly declared was lying. The reported, however, that an Iraqi nurse who assisted the woman (speaking on the condition of anonymity) said that […]

TAKE THAT, GROVER NORQUIST. Good news from a New York Times/CBS News poll this morning. Sixty percent of Americans — including 62 percent of independents — would be willing to pay more taxes to guarantee universal health coverage. But according to the poll, only 36 percent of Americans have confidence in Hillary Clinton�s ability to […]