After Osama bin Laden was killed, I wrote a somewhat contrarian piece arguing that the government should release a photo of his body. I then went on NPR’s On the Media to talk about it, alongside the New Yorker‘s Philip Gourevitch, who was rather contemptuous of my position (audio here, transcript here), but I stuck […]
Blog: TAPPED
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
In Defense of Rachel Maddow
After Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington, D.C., last year, Rachel Maddow convinced Stewart to sit down with her for over an hour to discuss politics and the media. She dedicated her entire show that night to the interview. I don’t see how anyone could have come away from that interview thinking Maddow […]
Posted inArticle
Herman Cain’s Racial Hucksterism
To the extent that Georgia businessman Herman Cain has an identifiable rhetorical style, it relies on the regular use of racially inflected humor, as The New York Times notes in this story on Cain’s tenuous position in the Republican nomination contest: He has no qualms, for instance, about playing off black clichés: should he become […]
Posted inArticle
Republicans Only Hate 9-9-9 Because It Makes Their Goal Too Clear
After Herman Cain rose to the first tier in the latest polls, the other Republican candidates finally decided to pay attention to what has been his sole selling point: the catchy 9-9-9 tax plan. The results weren’t pretty at last night’s debate. “Herman’s well-meaning, and I love his boldness, and it’s great,” Rick Santorum said. […]
Posted inArticle
What Happens if Obama Can’t Fill Judicial Vacancies?
The Washington Post’s Al Kamen gives a quick update on the pace of judicial confirmations in the Senate. In short, President Obama shouldn’t expect to fill many more vacancies on the federal bench: Presidential election years are notoriously bad for nominees. For one thing, the Senate will probably meet fewer days in 2012, as it […]
Posted inArticle
Romney’s Lawn Problem
As Jamelle noted earlier, things got testy between Mitt Romney and Rick Perry at last night’s debate. After being hammered on immigration issues for the past several weeks, Rick Perry turned the tables and accused Romney of hypocrisy. “Mitt, you lose all of your standing, from my perspective,” Perry said, “because you hired illegals in […]
Posted inArticle
What Will Happen with Black Turnout in 2012?
The thing to remember about Barack Obama’s support among black voters in the 2008 election is that it simply wasn’t as remarkable as it was presented. Obama won 95 percent of African American voters, which is not substantially higher than John Kerry’s 88 percent performance in 2004 and Al Gore’s 90 percent performance in 2000. […]
Posted inArticle
Majority of Americans Now Support Marijuana Legalization
Yesterday, Gallup reported that in its latest poll, support for legalization of marijuana has for the first time cracked 50 percent: Why has this happened? I’d point to a few reasons. First, we’ve had a fairly active debate about medical use of marijuana for some time, and that debate has been soundly won by the […]
Posted inArticle
Liberal Media Bludgeoning Obama; Conservatives at a Loss to Explain It
The good folks at the Project for Excellence in Journalism are constantly doing evaluations of news coverage, and one of the things they determine is how favorable or unfavorable coverage is to various political figures. Their latest report has some interesting findings. Rick Perry started off getting enormously positive coverage, but that changed after his […]
Posted inArticle
Herman Cain Is Extremely Confused
(Flickr/Gage Skidmore) Dan Amira at New York has located some bizarre video of Herman Cain trying to explain his position on abortion on a television program a few months ago. To appreciate the muddled thinking, you just have to watch it: As Amira says, it was as though Cain “simply gathered some common abortion-related words […]
