So I got an e-mail yesterday, as I periodically do, from a moderate Republican wondering why we all just can’t get along:
I have no problems with Obama being president, I just prefer McCain’s policies and experience more. I believe we actually have two good choices this election, opposed to the last one. Having said all […]

[Read more →]

It was a bad week for John McCain in large part because it was a bad week for Sarah Palin.
“Terrible,” said My Mother the Winger, who doesn’t even try to defend Palin anymore.
The Katie Couric interview is probably going to go down as one of the greatest crash-and-burns in political history. And as I’ve written […]

[Read more →]

Like LOLcats, but more relevant. Sort of.

see Obama pictures

[Read more →]

Brad over at Sadly! No:
One of American liberalism’s saddest myths is that the American people are inherently good, optimistic folks who have been duped into voting against their interests by crafty Republicans who play on their spites and resentments. If only the Democrats could nominate someone who embodies a new kind of politics where people […]

[Read more →]

I hadn’t called Shawn the drummer for months, and I felt cheesy about it. With the class and the kids and everything else there’s just no time to rock and roll, but my stuff - an amp, microphone, various stands, etc. - were still at his house. So I dropped him an e-mail: Uh, I […]

[Read more →]

Hm. NY Times takes a look at the “Milennial Makeover,” a book which theorizes that the future of American politics is being crafted by the Facebook pages of today:
Why are Millennials [those born since 1982] inclined to vote Democratic? Thanks to “their protected, structured and positively reinforced upbringing” (lots of quality time with their parents, […]

[Read more →]

Via the Interfaith Alliance, Pastor Dan - in an apparent attempt to get my blood boiling (mission accomplished!) - provides us with the top 10 (or bottom 10) moments in our national race for Pastor-in-Chief:
10. Mitt Romney is asked if he believes “every word” of the Bible (CNN/You Tube debate (11-28-07).
9.  CNN’s Soledad O’Brien asks John Edwards […]

[Read more →]

Curious to follow the discussion in this thread regarding patriotism and whether liberals have any. This, of course, has long been the cudgel which the right has used to beat up on the left, and it’s been effective. Or rather, it was effective - before Iraq.
Because the quagmire in Iraq (Now with 50 percent less death!) […]

[Read more →]

So Marv (my boss) forwards me an e-mail, and apparently we’ve gotten quite a few of these this week:
I find the implication that someone who has dedicated his or her life to serving America lacks patriotism utterly unpalatable. But reading Nedra Pickler of the AP’s Sunday smear piece against Senator Barack Obama, it appears that […]

[Read more →]

My father is a big Lou Dobbs fan. Might get a chance to vote for him for president, it seems.

[Read more →]

…in which the cross-dressing, twice-divorced, nice to gays, pro-choice Giuliani is endorsed by Pat “9/11 was punishment for our sins!” Robertson.
In a word: Sellout.
Update: Lew Rockwell weighs in with this:
I am not at all surprised that Christian right leaders like the Rev. Robertson are endorsing men like Giuliani. The core values of the “Values Voters” […]

[Read more →]

In a much-remarked upon piece, USA Today notes that the country is in one of its most sour moods in decades, a funk that is remarkable both for its depth as well as its duration:
In all, 72% of those surveyed in a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Oct. 12-14 say they are dissatisfied with how things […]

[Read more →]

Steve Benen gets it exactly right:
There’s just no reason for apoplexy here. Stark said something mean about Bush during a congressional debate. The president is a big boy; I think he can handle it. But by throwing a tantrum, congressional Republicans are suggesting that they can’t handle it. They’re not grown-ups. Random, intemperate criticism of […]

[Read more →]

Over at Sullivan’s place there’s this debate going on about Hillary - how the right is specifically using the spectre of Hillary to raise money, to galvanize supporters. Sullivan has suggested repeatedly that were the Democrats to nominate Hillary it would be a bad move for a lot of reasons -but primarily because of her […]

[Read more →]

Sullivan posts an interesting theory:
Traditional liberalism is moribund; and Bush and Rove have destroyed conservatism as a coherent governing philosophy. It’s obvious from this blog that I too find Ron Paul and Barack Obama by far the most interesting candidates. Not because I agree with them on everything. But because they alone represent the courage […]

[Read more →]

Hmm. The military famously tilts conservative, or so we are assured by conservatives. But money-wise that may be changing, suggests a new poll showing that “members of the U.S. military have dramatically increased their political contributions to Democrats, marching sharply away from the party they’ve long supported.”
And as The Plank notes, the most interesting aspect […]

[Read more →]

Daniel Larison opposes it and Fred Thompson’s use of it as well:
During his appearance on The Tonight Show, Fred said something that is rather stunningly and obviously untrue:
Our people have shed more blood for the liberty and freedom of other peoples … than all the other countries put together.
There’s nothing terribly edifying in this kind of […]

[Read more →]

Looking to get down with this groovy internets thing.

[Read more →]

A second history class last evening, with the discussion focusing on the Missouri Compromise, the role slavery played in the crisis and how these were perhaps the first tears in the national fabric that would lead to civil war.
It’s fascinating stuff for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being that when we’re in […]

[Read more →]

Ramesh Ponnuru over at the Corner, wondering if the Craig business isn’t indicative of something beyond one man’s demons/perversions:
There was a period in the 1990s when every few months you’d read about some British Tory politician found dead of autoerotic asphyxiation, or somesuch, and of course it was right after the Tories had started a […]

[Read more →]