Politics
-
Quote of the Day: Joe Klein
Clinton’s apparent loss of the nomination was a consequence of her campaign’s incompetence, but it was also a result of her reliance on the same-old. The shameless populism that seemed a possible game changer to media observers, micro-ideas like the gas-tax holiday, the willingness to go negative — which Obama tried intermittently, in halfhearted reaction
-
Profile(s) of an Obamacan (Updated)
David Brooks is wrong about Obama having been pushed to the far left. He will easily reoccupy the territory claimed by Hillary once she leaves the field. Former Republican John Cole exemplifies the attitude that will sway the sane people in the middle and middle-right toward Obama. He wants to send the far right extremists
-
Indiana and North Carolina (Updated)
11: 00 AM PT: Hoosiers and Tarheels, lend me your ears. Please, please, please put this desperate, flailing, power-crazed and craven Clinton campaign out of its misery, and put the rest of the country in a position in which it can move forward. Is it too much too ask? Why put off the inevitable? The
-
The Post-American World (Updated)
I found the Fareed Zakaria interview with Charlie Rose very helpful: Zakaria is hardly a man of the left. He supported the war, but now believes it was a horrible mistake. He’s pro free trade. At some point when we have sane leadership, we can get into a deeper discussion of trade policy. It’s a
-
May the Force Be with Him
Just saw this at Balloon Juice. Parts are laugh out loud funny:
-
Who’s a real American? (Updated)
This contest is more than about Obama and his policies: it’s about defining what it means to be an American. Nobody gets that upset with Hagee or Robertson or any number of white religious figures who make outrageous statements because nobody questions that they are Americans. Jeremiah Wright? A lot of us Americans have a
-
Vicious Truths
Commonweal Magazine has a short piece by Don Wycliff, a relatively mainstream writer (teaches media criticism at Notre Dame), who sees Wright’s public comments as I do: Whatever may have been Wright’s motives for speaking out now, he stands to earn a dubious distinction in American history: the man who torpedoed the presidential chances of
-
Wright a Resentful Egomaniac? 2
New Republic’s Noam Scheiber quotes from David Mendell’s Obama biography to explain why Obama joined Wright’s church in the first place : Wright earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in sacred music from Howard University and initially pursued a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago Divinity School before interrupting his studies to minister full-time. His intellectualism
-
Wright a Resentful Egomaniac? (Updated)
Is this a style controversy or a substance controversy? I see it as the first, but it’s being played in the media as if it’s the second. I’m no expert in African-American Christianity, but I think that Wright is right when he says that this controversy is not primarily about Obama or him; it’s about
-
Garry Wills on Lincoln, Obama, & Race
Jeremiah Wright was Obama’s John Brown. Lincoln had to dissociate himself from the fiery and divisive Brown. He did so, and called attempts to link him with Brown "malicious slander." But some thought that he did not go far enough in denouncing Brown. Lincoln did not call him a fanatic or insult those who sympathized