Blog: TAPPED

THE REVERSE MIDAS TOUCH. As I noted last week, we are now in a position in Iraq where everything we do will lead to some new disastrous outcome for the Iraqi people. Under conditions of civil war and sectarian conflict, every intervention has the effect of strenthening some group at the expense of another, and […]

JOHN EDWARDS AND IRAN, IRAQ, ETC. My earlier comments on John Edwards‘ attitudes on Iran and takeaways from Iraq resulted in an interview with the man himself today. The transcript is here, and I encourage you to read it. It’s a happy fact of online publishing that I can just dump a full transcript on […]

LADIES’ FIGHT. I’d like to add a couple factual points to the discussion between Linda Hirshman and Mark Schmitt. First, it is demonstrably the case that Hillary Clinton has greater support from women than from men, as I blogged on this site in December. Therefore it was not, contra Hirshman, unreasonable for Clinton’s strategists to […]

NO GOOD MOVES. Via Kevin Drum, this is why we have got to get out of Iraq. It has genuinely gotten to the point where every single thing we do there no matter how it looks in theory or on paper is going to contribute to some horrible, morally repugnant outcome. Today’s Exhibit A: The […]

HELP! Maybe somebody has a suggestion here for a technodoofus such as myself. I can�t watch videos on my home computer. They start to download, but the typical experience is that if a YouTube clip is, say, 4:16 seconds, the little bar that tells you how much of the clip has downloaded gets about one-third […]

BIGGER PICTURE. David Ignatius has an excellent column in the WaPo today that steps back from the Scooter Libby trial and poses the still-puzzling question about the events surrounding the administration’s attack on Joe Wilson in summer 2003: Why was the White House so nervous in the summer of 2003 about the CIA’s reporting on […]

LINDA HIRSHMAN RESPONDS TO MARK SCHMITT. The Internet is full of the eponymous blogs of academics with apparently nothing else to do. So I did not pay much attention, when conservative diva Ann Althouse (“Ms. Althouse Is Divine,” —Terry Teachout) criticized my Washington Post article, “You�ve Come a Long Way, Maybe.” “Maybe” reports the extensive […]

I�M THE A–HOLE? At the lobby at the Washington Hilton at the DNC winter meetings, I headed over to a conversation between political columnist Roger Simon and former DNC Chairman Don Fowler of South Carolina. (Not to be confused with Donnie Fowler, his son, who ran for DNC chair in 2004.) I had come over […]

SCALIA: BUSH’S ELECTION UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Antonin Scalia has done us the favor of explaining the equal protection theory behind the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore. (Which is handy, since the per curiam opinion for all intents and purposes failed to articulate anything that could be called a theory at all.) Says Justice Scalia: And […]

WAIT A MINUTE, MR. POSTMAN. As part of our ongoing effort to better serve you, the TAP Online reader, we’ll be publishing a weekly round-up of responses to our web articles. This week, readers react to Harold‘s piece on Andy Stern, Matt‘s column on health care, and Erica Lipper‘s review of The Bastard of Istanbul. […]