Category Archives: Current Events

My pal Robert Elisberg, who (I promise, Bob) is going to get that lunch I owe him very soon, has a good piece up over at The Huffington Post about Barack Obama's legislative record. It's not what his detractors claim it is, what a surprise.

David Sedaris muses about Undecided Voters. Who are these people, anyway?

Fred Kaplan thinks that Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama is a pretty big deal. I do, too.

As I've mentioned here a few times, I think most of what passes for Airport Security these days is just a show that's staged to make us think something is being done to catch 9/11-style hijackers before they get on the planes. When you come right down to it, there's no effective reason for us to take off our shoes, dump our bottled water, discard our nail clippers, etc. If someone was determined enough that they were prepared to fly a plane into a building, they could find a way to get a pair of cuticle scissors past the metal detectors.

Jeffrey Goldberg has the same theory and he's been testing it…with the expected result.

I'm kinda sick of articles about Sarah Palin but Jane Mayer wrote one that's well worth reading.

By the way: I was serious a number of postings ago when I said that Palin is bucking for Ann Coulter's job. I don't think McCain's running mate has any future running for elected office, maybe not even in Alaska. But I think she can make a ton of money entertaining right-wing audiences.

Where does all the political insight on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart come from? Irin Camron says it comes from producer Adam Chodikoff.

Back here, I linked to an article that said (among other things) that John McCain's wartime record was not as heroic as was often advertised. Here, on the other hand, is Matt Welch to rebut that claim.

"Recommended Reading" in the subject line here doesn't necessarily mean I agree with the linked article; just that I think it's worth reading. I don't know how I feel about what Jacob Weisberg has written — a piece about how the recent financial Chernobyl has proven that Libertarianism doesn't work — but it's certainly a thought-provoking piece.

We all know how much Donald Rumsfeld did to botch up the situation in Iraq. A new report posits that he, way more so than the usually-blamed Jimmy Carter, was responsible for the mess in Iran back in the seventies.

This whole furor over ACORN and "vote fraud" is a fraud unto itself. Someone is saying, "We're about to lose an election and it may be a landslide…we've got to find ways to argue that all those votes against us are illegitimate." Dahlia Lithwick explains what's what.

Matt Taibbi has a good takedown on Karl Rove. I especially liked this paragraph…

The reason Rove continues to survive is the same reason that Johnnie Cochran was called a genius for keeping a double-murderer on the golf course — because this generation of Americans has become so steeped in greed and social Darwinism that it can no longer distinguish between cheating and achieving, between enterprise and crime, and can't bring itself to criticize winners any more than it knows how to be nice to losers. He survives because an increasing number of Americans secretly agree with Rove's vision of rules, laws and "the truth" as quaint, faintly embarrassing rituals that only a sucker would let hold him back.

Sad to say, I think that's true. When was the last time you saw any shame in connection with what someone had to do to "win" in some situation? Some people will forgive anything in the cause of success…and wonder how anyone could fault them for what they felt they had to do?

Much of the blogosphere is talking about the fact that Christopher Buckley, son of William F. and bastion of Conservative politics, has endorsed Barack Obama. So I might as well mention it here and give you the link. It's not that strong an argument. I wouldn't interpret it to mean a lot more than that some Conservatives and Republicans are feeling real uncomfortable, not about McCain's politics but because of his current manner and style.

Fred Kaplan notes that what Barack Obama has said about dealing with enemy nations — the position McCain and Palin have dismissed as "beyond naive" and "dangerous" — is pretty much the same thing that the sainted General Petraeus has been saying.

Frank Schaeffer, a longtime supporter of John McCain and vice-versa, thinks McCain-Palin rallies are starting to resemble lynch mobs. That's what a lot of this election is turning into: "If we can't beat him, let's hate him!"

Here's a very concise explanation of why John McCain's health care plan would be a disaster for most Americans but a windfall for insurance companies.