Blog: TAPPED

LIEBERMAN (DUH-CT). According to The Politico, Joe Lieberman is suggesting that a Democratic vote against war funding would spur him to complete his transformation into a full-blown Republican and switch parties. This is somewhat less dangerous for Democrats than it appears, as Lieberman already votes how he’ll vote and the Committee chairs and leadership positions […]

WAPO GOOD, BAD, AND FUNNY. While the White House anxiously awaits word on Scooter Libby‘s legal fate, it’s really worth checking out Dan Froomkin‘s column from yesterday at washingtonpost.com, which focuses on the Cheney angle in Fitzgerald’s closing yesterday. For a little comic relief, read the long Outlook columnby Victoria Toensing in the WaPo on […]

MEANS AND MEDIANS. I was thinking through Robert Reich‘s proposal to mandate that countries who want to trade with us set a minimum wage of half their median wage, and I ended up digging into some median wage statistics* domestically. For those fuzzy on the terms here, median means, essentially, in the middle. If I […]

THE ETHICS OF APOLOGY. I dunno, Ezra, I rather thought Mike Tomasky made a really smart point in his column this week:

PRESS RELEASES FOR DUMMIES. I recall blogging about this during the last presidential cycle, to no apparent effect, so I’d like to again make a brief on behalf of plain English and clarity to all those campaign workers who write press releases. Once upon a time press releases were delivered by hand or by mail. […]

THE TINIEST VIOLIN IN THE WORLD…I’m always amazed at how similarly the left and the right perceive each other. Here’s The American Spectator‘s Quin Hillyer complaining about liberal incivility: The Left can dish it out (with frequent use of “f” words and direct questioning of conservatives’ motives, not just our reasoning), but they just can’t […]

A ‘LARRY SUMMERS MOMENT’. Amy Hoffman, editor-in-chief of the Women’s Review of Books, recently reported that she attended a lecture at the Radcliffe Institute by Barry Gewen, an editor at the New York Times Book Review. In what even he described as a “Larry Summers moment” he explained that the reason so few women reviewers […]

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: THE STANDARD ISSUE. Robert Reich offers a specific proposal for what kinds of labor standards we should want included in trade deals. –The Editors

HONEST STUPIDITY. Now that he no longer stalks the Prospect‘s halls with a whip and a red pen, I feel free to say that ol’ Bossman’s Tomasky‘s latest column strikes me as rather strange. Call it post-pre-war revisionism, but I think Mike’s rundown of how disingenuous most war supporters were forgets too much about the […]

KEEPING THE OPTIONS OPEN. I’m very late to this debate, but since Ezra asked… I don’t think that the argument that a Democratic presidential candidate needs to keep his/her options open regarding war against Iran holds much water. The logic behind this arguments seems to go like this; if Barack Obama or whoever else declares […]