Blog: TAPPED

MORE GLOBAL WARMING PESSIMISM. I wish I shared Matt‘s optimism. John Quiggin‘s post, and Matt’s, largely focuses on the ease of heavily reducing CO2 emissions within America. And on that point, Quiggin’s right: to paraphrase Rob Schneider‘s character in nearly every Adam Sandler movie ever made, we could do it! But we won’t. The quick […]

CUTTING CARBON EMISSIONS — FUN AND EASY. I don’t think Ezra should be so quick to concede the infeasibility of big reductions in carbon emissions. The notion that this would require earth-shattering economic sacrifices is the product of an unfortunate conspiracy between regulation-averse right-wingers who don’t want us to do anything about the problem, and […]

PARTY IN SEARCH OF A NOTION. Our fearless leader Mike Tomasky wrote the new cover story for the May print issue of the Prospect, a piece that offers a lengthy rumination on the lingering “philosophy gap” between the left and the right and a prescription for closing it. Mike delineates the two basic liberal traditions […]

A REAL WHITE HOUSE SNOW JOB. Unless President Bush wants to face headlines cracking jokes about “snow jobs” and “getting snowed” for the next three years, selecting FOX News’ Tony Snow to be the new White House spokesman doesn’t seem like the best idea. I don’t particularly think the identity of the White House spokesman […]

COOL TO GLOBAL WARMING. I’m fairly puzzled by the emerging conservative line on global warming. Realizing they’ve lost the debate on whether it will happen, they’ve begun turning to the difficulties of stopping it. Pushing that line today is Ross Douthat, who’s frustrated by Al Gore‘s insistence on energizing the issue and adamant that “the […]

VOTER TARGETING VS. MOVEMENT BUILDING. One of the peculiarities of this moment in progressive movement building is the way progressive interest groups are being asked to put aside their interests in favor of building a smooth, unified political party that can win elections at the very moment that some rather compelling evidence has begun to […]

FIRE EVERYONE, HIRE LA TIMES COLUMNISTS INSTEAD. Max Boot offers up the right-wing version of the incompetence dodge — Don Rumsfeld should be fired for his mismanagement of the war, and the professionals in the officers’ corps should be slammed for their own mismanagement of the war. Apparently, the only people fit to run the […]

WHICH MCCAIN IS WHICH? Jon Chait has responded to my criticisms of his liberal McCain meme. As befits two folks who disagree, he found my rebuttal unconvincing, and I found his defense similarly so. Reading Chait, it seems that his case rests on two primary pieces of evidence: 1) McCain felt out a party switch […]

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. If you’re interested in getting a taste of the burgeoning grass-roots support for a quasi-fascist understanding of American politics, take a gander at this email sent to Jonah Goldberg. It starts with the sentiment that “Analyzing a war, especially publicly, right in the middle of the fight is a terrible thing to […]

HECKUVA JOB, SCOTTIE. One thing you can say in George Bush‘s favor is that he’s exactly the sort of boss you’d like to use as a reference when you look for your next job. Scott McClellan‘s tenure as White House press secretary has been objectively disastrous — a giant step down from the psychopathically smooth […]