Blog: TAPPED

OBAMA & DEAN ON IRAN. Not to run this into the ground, but looking into what various politicians, left and right, have actually said about Iran has proved surprisingly eye-opening, and made me think perhaps we were all being a bit hard on John Edwards by focusing only his comments to Herzliya last week. For […]

LIBBY CLOSE. Scooter Libby‘s defense has announced that they’re not calling Dick Cheney as a witness after all, and confirmed that Libby won’t be testifying. In fact, they’re going to call a few CIA briefers to testify to the important matters Libby was briefed on, enter a few documents, and rest their case. Closing arguments […]

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 […]

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. This week, Matt contemplates the insanity and sheer incoherence of the Bush administration’s “moderate”/”extremist” realignment strategy in the Mid-East. [Warning: This column is rated PG:13.] –The Editors

INSIDER TRADING IN STUDENT LOAN INDUSTRY: As recently reported, President Bush‘s budget will cut wasteful subsidies to student loan corporations and redirect the funding to Pell Grants. Finally Bush has done something progressives can cheer, though experts think he could have gone farther. Meanwhile, Albert L. Lord, chairman of Sallie Mae, sold 400,000 shares of […]

MORE MITT. Mitt Romney did not excerpt this part of his Herzliya speech on his website, but a group called Control Congress transcribed it from a video excerpt provided by Romney’s campaign. Romney also said: In the current conflict, there�s only one way to lose, and that is if we as a civilization decide not […]

MITT ON IRAN. And here is Mitt Romney on how to handle Iran, in remarks at the Herzliya conference in Israel, where he was the only one of the five American presidential contenders to deliver his speech in person: First, we must continue tighten economic sanctions. Our model should be at least as severe to […]

HEROES. Via Kevin comes this data point on the increasing representation of torture as a tool of heroes. From 1996 to 2001, prime time television had 102 torture scenes. From 2002 to 2005, there were 624. But it wasn’t only the quantity that change. “During this uptick in violence, the torturer’s identity was more likely […]

WHAT REAL HAWKISHNESS LOOKS LIKE. Lest everyone get so entangled in parsing the statements of Democrats that they forget the country contains a lot of people to the right of Iowa caucus-goers, here’s what a real Iran hawk sounds like. Here’s John McCain on Meet the Press in 2004: SEN. McCAIN: [T]his is a harsh […]

POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: STATUS ANXIETY. Olivia Starr reports from Kosovo on the recently unveiled plan providing a framework for the area’s future status. –The Editors