Blog: TAPPED

POLLACK ON IRAN. Since Ken Pollack seems to have re-emerged as a figure of controversy, I thought it might be worth noting what his actual views on Iran are. He thinks we ought to invade just like in Iraq engage in some diplomacy. Or to quote from his essay “A Grand Strategy for the Middle […]

BACK IN THE DAYS OF AWESOME. I figured I�d wait until cubiclemate Sam left the office for lunch to launch a brief rebuttal. As one of his commenters pointed out, there is much more to rock criticism than parsing through lyrics. And what makes Neil Young�s Living With War magnificent is the album�s coarse and […]

PERMANENT BASES. Now here’s a real sign of the President’s burgeoning lame duckedness: The Senate actually approved an amendment from Joe Biden preventing the administration from using funds from the Iraq supplemental appropriation for the construction of permanent bases. –Matthew Yglesias

RUSH TO JUDGMENT. Tim Noah explains everything you ever wanted to know about the Rush Limbaugh OxyContin deal, complete with source documents. Very Smoking Gun. –Garance Franke-Ruta

CAPTURE THE FLAG. Ryan Lizza‘s just posted a devastating follow-up to his TNR cover story on Virginia Senator and likely presidential contender George Allen. The take-home: Allen’s love affair with the slave-holding past was no youthful affectation. Writes Lizza: Images of Allen are like a Civil War version of Where’s Waldo, with the Confederate flag […]

REGARDING STALINIST AESTHETICS. Of course Noam Scheiber‘s all wrong about Stephen Colbert‘s performance on Saturday, but his invocation of “Stalinist aesthetics” provides the pretext to discuss another burning politico-cultural issue: Neil Young‘s new album. I’ve been having this argument offline with my cubicle-mate Fast Leon ever since he plugged the album on Tapped, and had […]

MEXICO’S NON-DECRIMINALIZATION. You may have heard that Mexico is legalizing drugs. Certainly, I’ve seen that reported in the press. The thing is, this is apparently not true and much less is changing than most people think. Mark Kleiman explains. –Matthew Yglesias

MY POINT EXACTLY. I think Fast Leon‘s making my case for me. Best as I can tell, genocide isn’t the issue in Sudan at this point. Rather, the two sides are wrangling over the terms of a political resolution to the conflict. The United States has a point of view that’s more favorable to the […]

MORE ON ABUJA. Just to respond to Matt, this update on the Abuja negotiations from the Sudan Tribune seems to indicate that the rebels� initial rejection of an African Union draft accord was a tactically wise move. Since the U.S. delegation arrived on Monday, the A.U. draft has been scrapped. It seems that Robert Zoellick […]

DAVID IGNATIUS: MCCAIN’S A MAVERICK BECAUSE I LIKE HIM. A quick point to add to Matt‘s deft skewering of David Ignatius‘s column on John McCain. What’s amazing is that Ignatius is saying the jury’s out on whether McCain will prove in the future to be adequately capable of flip-flopping — yet in the same column, […]