Politics
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For the Record
. . . about the paper of record Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said the newspaper has written so much about the issue of water-boarding that "I think this Kennedy School study — by focusing on whether we have embraced the politically correct term of art in our news stories — is
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Waiting for That Moment of Clarity
What's the cause of that sick feeling you probably have in your stomach? Josh Marshall attempts to answer: What's particularly chilling is that the elite and popular policy debates are moving in the same direction. The professional economists, international financial agency types, etc are pushing for retrenchment. They seem to have won the argument at
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Reverting to the Oligarchical Historical Norm
The collapse of the economy in the Great Recession gave us the starkest, most painful evidence imaginable of the failure of laissez-faire economics and the destructive force of the alliance of big business and government against the interests of ordinary Americans. Radical change was called for. (One thinks of Franklin Roosevelt raging against the "economic
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An Alternative to the Feckless, Purposeless, Weak-Kneed Dems?
E.J. Dionne on Democratic malaise: . . . the GOP seems to be doing all it can to make itself unelectable, veering far to the right and embracing a tea-party movement that, at its extremes, preaches the need for revolution. That sounds more like the old New Left than a reinvigorated conservatism. Oh yes, and
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The Long Con (Updated)
I think we should get out of the habit of calling corporate Dems "centrist" and "moderate". That's how they want to be perceived, but that's not who they are. Their political posturing does not matter; whose interests they serve does. When the media or reasonable, moderate, grown-up Dems in the rank-and-file accept the posturing as
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Where’s the Leadership, Mr. President?
It’s this misplaced trust in elites both outside the White House and within it that seems to prevent Obama from realizing the moment that history has handed to him. Americans are still seething at the bonus-grabbing titans of the bubble and at the public and private institutions that failed to police them. But rather than
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Deneen’s Two Cents
I came across this recent talk entitled “Sensus Communis and Nature’s Law: Why Communities Know Natural Law Better Than Philosophers” given by Patrick Deneen at a conference at Princeton. It supports Mike McG's dissent to my posts about the perils of allowing our social lattices to disintegrate and why kids' attitudes, and those of society
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Quote of the Day: Brad DeLong
Have decades of widening wealth inequality created a chattering class of reporters, pundits and lobbyists who’ve lost their connection to mainstream America? Has the collapse of the union movement removed not only labor’s political muscle but its beating heart from the consciousness of the powerful? Has this recession, which has reduced hiring more than it
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The Tea Party and the Middle
Tristero at Hullabaloo has a post this weekend responding to a February article in the Progressive by Chip Berlet entitled "Taking Tea Partiers Seriously". He is bothered by a theme in Berlet's article that suggests that there is anything about the Tea Party or the cultural right's agenda that should be respected. Take them seriously
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A Vulnerable Status Quo? (Updated)
it's hard not to be encouraged by the disgust which the citizenry clearly has for the political establishment regardless of party, as well as the resulting (and increasing) fear and confusion on the part of the political class. This sort of citizenry anger can re-arrange political alignments and explode political orthodoxies in fundamental and unpredictable