Blog: TAPPED

REPRINT. The Los Angeles Times, for all intents and purposes, has reprinted the Halevi and Oren New Republic article on Israeli fears about the Iranian nuclear program. Citing both of the TNR authors as authorities on Israeli public and strategic opinion, the Richard Boudreaux-penned article demonstrated no noticeable effort to find any diversity in Israeli […]

PRECEDENT. One more point on Edwards and the bloggers: Does the Edwards campaign really want to set the precedent that they endorse the entire public record of each and every low-level staffer they hire? Amanda and Melissa, after all, weren’t brought on to be the candidate. One is supposed to be the blogmaster, the other […]

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: FALLING FLAT. The flat tax is back in vogue among would-be Republican presidential nominees. J. Goodrich reminds us why it’s a bad idea. —The Editors

A WHOLE NEW WORLD? So this grand new alliance between Wal-Mart and SEIU and AT&T and the CWA and Intel and CAP and all the rest is sure exciting, but I’m not yet excited. What you really have here are a bunch of organizations endorsing the concept of universal health insurance by 2012. The devil, […]

POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: INHERIT THE WINDFALL. Robert Reich makes the case for taxing oil company profits to fund R&D on alternative energy. –The Editors

ENTER WOLFOWITZ An interesting twist today in the Libby trial: We’ve known for a while that one of the actions Libby took in July 2003 that the prosecution contends shows how focused he was on shaping media coverage of the Niger uranium controversy was his transmittal, through another government official, of parts of the October […]

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON, EDWARDS? I don�t know Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, but if Edwards does fire them, it would appear that he�s caving to the demands of a bigoted right-wing activist who worked very hard to make sure that Edwards would not be elected vice-president in 2004. My favorite quote from Catholic […]

MORE ON THE WAGGING. This is a debate that I’ve allowed to lay fallow, but there’s still something useful to be said. Originally, Brad Plumer argued that the U.S. defense establishment should be constrained in order to constrain the foreign policy options of our leadership; without a sufficient military establishment, we would consider military action […]

MSM V. LIBBY. Tim Russert is set to testify for the prosecution in the Libby trial today. Russert is expected to testify, contrary to the central part of the story Libby told the FBI and the grand jury, that Libby did not learn from him that Joe Wilson‘s wife worked for the CIA. Even if […]

SMALL STAKES ENSURE THE MINIMUM CREDIBILITY. Garance makes a very important point below. When evaluating assertions of great importance, it’s always useful to see whether people talking hysterically actually act in ways consistent with their rhetoric. I’ve said many times that I’ve never found the ethical question of abortion particularly troubling, for a central reason: […]