Ezra Klein

My new trivia technique is unstoppable. And it mainly consists of picking my team really well. But Dave is right: Great feats deserve bloggy triumphalism. And so let the history books record that with Julian Sanchez, Megan McArdle, Dave Weigel, and Lindsey Gibson arrayed around my table, the Liberaltarian alliance triumphed for the second time […]

WHO RUNS IRAN? Mark Kleiman is bothered, rightly, by the tendency to treat Iran as a sovereign, Western-style country whose actions “are the results of political conflicts and agreements among Iranian politicians, interest groups, and factions.” In other words, when we talk about Iran, we don’t take the complexities and oddities of its politics into […]

It really is a shame that Judge Learned Hand never made it to the Supreme Court. Names like that — particularly in individuals of relevant talent and grace — don’t come along but once in a generation, and we owe it to our children to elevate the easy-to-remember to historical positions. Also, there used to […]

This seems like the sort of attack that will do some damage to the GOP’s current frontrunners: What do you make of candidates like Giuliani, Romney and McCain—all of whom have moved to the right on social issues? The first thing is: imitation is the most serious form of flattery. Some are having a late […]

Are you finished yet? Love, Ezra

Even though sentencing won’t occur for awhile yet, attention is turning to Libby’s prospects for a presidential pardon once Bush leaves office. I doubt it. Bush has never been one to keep loyalty a two-way street. It’s long been his M.O to cut loose even the most faithful of servants after they outlive their usefulness. […]

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf Amidst the discussions of why Mike Huckabee can’t catch fire, one issue I haven’t seen raised yet is money. Having annoyed the economic royalist faction of the GOP by raising taxes as governor, he’s not well-positioned to raise the cash he’ll need to become a top-tier candidate. Money matters even […]

Since I’m operating behind a novocain haze, I’m outsourcing my commentary on the Libby verdict to Kevin Drum. The context here is that the Libby trial was really about the administration’s efforts to spin the pre-war intelligence, in this case by smearing Joe Wilson when he cast doubt on Iraq’s capabilities. But Libby has actually […]

Back tomorrow, at which point I’ll expect sympathy. Update: Oy. But to the commenter who suggested I bring an iPod to the operation, you deserve a MacArthur Grant for Nobel prize winners in the category of genius.

[litbrit speaking] I really liked Glen Greenwald’s take on the (latest) Ann Coulter bit of blather. He discusses a conversation on Fox last night between Kirsten Powers, Bill O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin; Malkin makes the observation that Coulter is “very popular among conservatives”, and Greenwald makes the following point: This is why — the only […]