Blog: TAPPED

KIDS SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS. The WaPo humorously pointed out today that while the House debates the non-binding resolution on the troop surge, Bush scurried to a seemingly more friendly YMCA, where a little boy ruined the photo-op with a peace sign. Bush told him to, “Put your hands down.” In the last line of […]

WHY AMERICAN HEALTH CARE COSTS SO MUCH. The nonpartisan McKinsey Group has released a study called “Accounting for the Cost of Health Care in the United States.” The idea, as the title suggests, is to figure out, in a rigorous and methodical way, why we pay so much more than any other developed country. To […]

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: SICK TRANSIT. Ben “Badler” Adler discusses the substantive importance and difficult politics of mass transit. –The Editors

LOOK PAST THE FACIAL HAIR. Greg Anrig has quite a crummy valentine for Robert Samuelson: Samuelson compares the size of the “welfare state” in 1956 to 2006, counting Social Security and Medicare, and seethingly highlights its growth from 21 percent of the federal budget to 59 percent. He doesn�t mention that in 1956, the poverty […]

THE IDIOTIC SEASON. Eric Boehlert has an excellent (if depressing) rundown of the thoroughly phony Pelosi plane non-scandal. As recently as Sunday — although the House Speaker-At-Arms had released a statement saying she didn’t request the plane on Thursday, and even the White House had dismissed it as a “silly” non-story — Glenn Reynolds appeared […]

POLITICIZING VALENTINE’S DAY. This being an unabashedly progressive magazine that often argues for more state involvement and derides the Bush administration’s small bore, overly individualistic solutions to (domestic) problems, I’ve been trying to figure out how to really paste them on Valentine’s Day. Thankfully, a six-year-old article on the attempts of Singapore’s government to increase […]

WHY JUDITH MILLER? Byron York at NRO yesterday observed that the testimony, on Monday, of a number of journalists that they did not receive a leak from Scooter Libby about Valerie Plame raised questions about one of the fundamental theories underlying the CIA-leak case. If Libby’s disclosure of Mrs. Wilson’s identity to Judith Miller and […]

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: THIS DOG WON’T WAG. In his column this week, Mike discusses the administration’s campaign to boost public support for a military confrontation with Iran. He has confidence that the American public will hold firm in opposing one, but he’s not so sure about the talking heads and pundits. –The Editors

RICHARD COHEN COMES CLEAN. And does so with self-deprecating grace: how come [Clinton] now says she did not think Bush, armed with a congressional resolution, would hurry to war? I certainly did. It was about the only thing I got right about the war, which, the record will show, I supported. If I were running […]

TWO ANTI-CATHOLIC VULGAR TRASH-TALKING BIGOTS. That is how William Donohue of the Catholic League described Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, two bloggers who were hired by the John Edwards campaign. Donohue then demanded that they be fired. This did not happen, though both bloggers have recently resigned from the campaign. That the New York Times […]