Politics

  • Sophomoric Conservatism II

    Greenwald posted yesterday on a theme similar to what I wrote about Saturday.  My post was prompted by a column by George Will, but segued into a criticism of Andrew Sullivan. The thrust of Greenwald’s post is to take a look at the growing trend within conservatism to repudiate Bush as unconservative.  There are some

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  • The Corporate State vs. Democracy

    James Galbraith, in the first annual John Kenneth Galbraith lecture at the Canadian Economics Association, talks about the relevance of his father’s book The New Industrial State as a lens through which to see our current system: One may argue that in the new millennium the large corporation has regained its central position on the

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  • The Supplemental Bill (Two Updates)

    I’ve been trying to understand both sides of this argument, and for the life of me it just seems to come down to the Dems willingly allowing themselves to be outspinned. Maybe there’s something I’m missing–if so, someone fill it in for me–but when Dick Durbin, a guy who voted against the original war authorization,

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  • Codependent with an Abusive Spouse

    Gary Kamiya in Salon: The truth is that Bush’s high crimes and misdemeanors, far from being too small, are too great. What has saved Bush is the fact that his lies were, literally, a matter of life and death. They were about war. And they were sanctified by 9/11. Bush tapped into a deep American

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  • Will Gonzales Go? (Updated)

    I’m not an insider, and so my only basis for speculation is my observations of the m.o. of this administration over the last several years.  Central to that m.o. is the administration’s need to operate secretly and without oversight.  Central to that m.o. is the stance that nobody is going to tell it what it

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  • More on Comey Testimony

    I asked the other day if anyone knew if anyone knew of any principled conservatives who are outraged about the  Bush administration’s program to lay the infrastructure for a future authoritarian regime, and I found one in Bruce Fein, a conservative and former Justice Department official in the Reagan administration. He appeared on Open Source

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  • Authoritarian Watch: Comey’s Testimony

    Here’s the NYT report, and here’s Greenwald’s take on it: Comey repeatedly stated that it appeared that Ashcroft was not even oriented to his surroundings. Compare that to Tony Snow’s disgustingly dismissive defense yesterday of the behavior of Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales: "Trying to take advantage of a sick man — because he had

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  • We’re a Right-Leaning Country

    Center right at best. But that’s in the cultural sphere, not necessarily in the political sphere. This is a reality that the progressive netroots seems not to grasp.  They talk themselves into believing that on the issues most Americans support them, and in their heads most Americans might, but in their guts they don’t.  It

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  • Authoritarian Watch: Boston Legal

    By way of Sullivan. If you haven’t seen this clip from Boston Legal, I think it catches the outrage we should all be feeling.  I also like the way it calls out the Democrats to be more outspoken about what has happen to us. Earlier in the week there was some discussion about restoring habeas

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  • Authoritarian Watch (Updated)

    Is there a line that respectable commentary cannot cross and still remain respectable. I can understand why lots of conservatives feel the malaise they do, but Thomas Sowell crosses a line with a comment like this one in National Review Online: When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and

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