Blog: TAPPED

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: HOW CONGRESS HELPED END THE VIETNAM WAR. As Congress begins to debate how to wind down the U.S. presence in Iraq, we’ve made available a very timely piece from our upcoming print issue. Historian Julian Zelizer takes a detailed look at how the Vietnam-era Congress — and not just the […]

WAS BRODER EVEN AT THE DNC? David Broder‘s invention of anti-military sentiment at the DNC winter meeting has even more flaws than Oliver Willis notes. For one, the fact that his column centers around a first day speech from retired general Wesley Clark is, in itself, a refutation of Broder’s central claim. Clark is a […]

OBAMA WILL WIN MISSISSIPPI! A final thought on my run-in with former DNC chair Don Fowler last Friday, specifically as it relates to the piece I will be publishing shortly in The Nation in response to Bob Moser�s provocative essay about a potential, economic populism-led renaissance for Democrats in the South. (By which, of course, […]

NO MARRIAGE WITHOUT PROCREATION! A group of (pro-)gay-marriage activists are pushing a ballot measure in Washington that would only grant marriage licenses to hetero couples who say they are willing to have children. And if those married couples fail to pop a few out by the time three years have passed, the state would automatically […]

INSTABILITY. Dan Nexon has a good response to my article on Iranian nuclear diplomacy: First, if Iran does achieve an effective nuclear deterrent that might, in fact, make it easier for Iran to pursue certain kinds of aggressive actions. This risk reflects B. H. Liddell Hart’s stability-instability paradox (PDF): mutual strategic deterrence might make it […]

STOP! NO MORE HEALTH CARE PLANS! I have not yet read John Edwards‘s health care proposal. I’ll trust Ezra that I would basically like it. And I’m very happy that he was willing to talk about raising taxes. But let me go public with the one sure thing I learned from my own miserable six […]

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: SKIN DEEP. We’ve seen some recent discussion about just “how black” Barack Obama really is — that is, how his background does or doesn’t resonate with the African-American experience. As Matt argues today, Joe Biden‘s “clean and articulate” fiasco from last week should at least serve to confirm that Obama […]

BLONDECTOMY. Mayor Gavin Newsom checked into a San Francisco hospital last night for an emergency blondectomy. Just kidding. But Newsom has stated that he is going to enter rehabilitation for alcoholism. In that he follows in the large footsteps of many other politicians who have been caught (for the lack of a better term) red-handed, […]

A MCCAIN TRUE COLORS WATCH UPDATE: It’s good to see TNR, which has at times been a bastion of liberals-for-McCainism, holding Sen. John McCain‘s feet to the fire for hiring Terry Nelson. This Nelson is truly an odious operative. Both the racist ads against Harold Ford in Tennessee last year and the Republicans’ scheme to […]

HRC Beinart sites comes in the next paragraph where he observes that “Research shows that female candidates–especially Democratic ones–are perceived as more liberal than they really are.” This quickly gets turned around into a clever pro-HRC point (“She may find it easier to run as an antiwar candidate because that is how people are predisposed […]