Politics
-
Iraq Study Group: My Two Cents
I don’t have a lot to say about it that isn’t obvious already. The angle that interests me, though, is whether this group, representing the country’s power establishment, has any real power. I’m not sure. There seems to be a different dynamic going on here that makes this "commission" and its report different from, say,
-
Who Lost Habeas Corpus?
I’ve been snowed under with work responsibilities for the last couple of weeks and simply have had no time to post anything worth reading here. I am working on an essay that attempts to understand why so many smart people could get things so terribly wrong, and why they continue to do so. But in
-
Whither the Democrats?
I'm not sure whither, but for me it all comes down to understanding where the power is now, and where it might be hence. We're in a temporary power lull at the moment, and it's not clear what direction things will go. There is a power struggle in this country that transcends party politics, but
-
Defining the Center
I’m going to restrain an impulse I’m feeling now to go on a rant about the MSM and the fatuousness of the Beltway media and their fatuous analysis of what this election means. But it also strikes me that the fatuousness does not lie with the media, but with the people who take it seriously.
-
Dream Analysis
Have we fully awakened from our six-year nightmare, or are we just going to stretch, yawn, and go back to sleep? For a particularly cogent analysis that attempts to describe to a blinking, sleepy-eyed public what we’ve just gone through, read Tom Englehardt’s piece "Plebiscite on an Outlaw Empire." It’s a failed empire, but we’re
-
Karl’s Math Way Wrong
A perfect storm of bad news for Republicans over the last couple of months has finally convinced the country, two years too late, that GOP rule has been a disaster. My basic emotion is relief. I have no illusions that Democrats are now going to make things better–only not as bad, but I am relieved
-
The Obsolescence of Principled Political Conservatism
I just roll my eyes whenever I read Andrew Sullivanesque rhapsodizing about the soul of conservatism and its small-government ideal. It’s an abstraction that has no longer any connection the way the world works or ever again will. Bigness in a rapidly globalizing world is here to stay; it’s just a question of putting the
-
Common Sense about Abortion
There are an awful lot of people who take positions on issues not on the basis of what they really think or believe, but because it’s the opposite of what those think whose "political aesthetic" revolts them. I read this kind of thing all the time on liberal and conservative blogs, and even among those
-
What if Karl’s Math Is Right?
Karl Rove in an NPR interview with Robert Siegel Tuesday insisted that his polling shows that the GOP will retain control of both houses. Despite the general polling that would indicate a landslide victory for Democrats, the election for the House of Representatives is a winner-take-all, district by district affair, and the GOP has worked