Ezra Klein

The Carpetbagger notes that the Christian Coalition is now basically bankrupt, their organization hollow and extraneous. But don’t pop the bubbly just yet — there’s a reason the Christian Coalition is dying and it’s not because they lost. iIt’s because they won. Having integrated the nation’s churches with the Republican majority, having convinced Karl Rove […]

Peter Daou’s written a really interesting piece on the media triangle that blogs are now a part of. It’s a good corrective to some of the blogosphere’s more fantastical boosters, but beyond that, it’s a really good analysis of the interplay between blogs, the established press, and the political mainstream. Looking at the political landscape, […]

This is great news. North Korea agreed Monday to end its nuclear weapons program in return for security, economic and energy benefits, potentially easing tensions with the United States after a two-year standoff over the North’s efforts to build atomic bombs. The United States, North Korea and four other nations participating in negotiations in Beijing […]

A week after Koizumi deployed his lipstick assassins to win a landslide victory for reform in Japan, we were supposed to see the same in Germany. Angela Merkel, an American-style economic reformer who promised free market solutions and a reigning-in of the welfare state was slated to crush Old Europe’s Gerhard Schroeder. But a funny […]

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf As Democrats know and Republicans try to forget, this Administration has turned the record budget surpluses of the late 1990s into unprecedented budget deficits. We’ve gone from a surplus of $236 billion in 2000 to a $412 billion deficit in 2004. Among the causes are tax cuts, the Iraq War, […]

By Pepper I thought about titling this article “Why Ah-nold Won’t Win” in honor of the salon Neil started explaining why Hillary won’t win. But I’ve got my eye on Ah-nold now that he plans to run again. In its heyday, the National Enquirer used to trash everyone, the bigger the better. I first caught […]

Shakes here, doing the salon thing with a follow-up to Neil’s post on Why Hillary Will Lose. I agree whole-heartedly with Neil’s assessment of Hillary, and his conclusions. Americans on the Left and the Right, any who aren’t blind ideologues, have a natural distaste for disingenuous rhetoric clearly designed to appeal to a crowd they […]

Posted by Jedmunds Doug Lederman of Inside Higher Ed reports that the Department of Defense is enforcing the Solomon Amendment, which bars federal funds to universities who prohibit military recruiting on campuses usually due to enforcing a non-discrimination policy against gays, against New York Law School and possibly two other law schools that are also […]

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf The old CW on Hillary’s presidential aspirations was that they’d be crushed under her liberal reputation. The “socialized medicine” attacks on her health care reform plan stuck to her more than they stuck to Bill. And while Bill’s upbringing and red-state governorship made him acceptable to Southern regionalists, Hillary’s Chicago […]

By Pepper In his big Katrina speech, it looked like George II would pull a magic trick and fade his blue torso right into a blue background. But it seems like he really does want to whip up a magic trick by rebuilding the Gulf Coast into a bigger, better place without having to pay […]