There was this annoyingly triumphant song we used to sing in school about what a keen place Oregon was back in 1915 or so, and even as a kid I thought it was weird. The chorus ended with, “Forward on and on… Hail to thee, land of heroes, my O-re-gon.” Never mind that the lyricist [...]
It’s quite dispiriting to write a blog, particularly about things that matter, when the available media is so maniacally obsessed with things that, well, don’t. So successful have the Republicans been in creating their post-reality “empire” that even those few in the media who know better are constantly reduced to anointing, say, Newt Gingrich, as [...]
It’s a phenomenon that began as soon as George W. Bush was safely installed in office; all that hogwash about “compassionate” conservatism and “humble” foreign policy went right out the window, to be replaced with Bush’s natural “sore winner” pose. Policies appeared to be designed not for their efficacy, but for their offensiveness to key [...]
Whenever I find myself in a good mood, and yet with a blog to write, I’m forced to go over to Politico to find something that will annoy me enough to drive me to drink, which usually leads to writing. In a sense, I kind of owe them. The worst, of course, are the little [...]
At the opening of Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell describes Scarlett O’Hara thusly: “…she wasn’t beautiful, but everyone thought she was.” Now, before you start thinking I’m going to bring up the battle axe of the borealis, I’m not, because my argument isn’t really about beauty (or lack thereof). It’s about the deep and [...]
Maybe it’s just me, but I get a little offended at the sheer lameness of the lies that pour daily out of the GOP; it’s as though they don’t even care what the truth is anymore, since they rightly recognize that their “base” consists of, well, stupid people. Today, right-thinking Americans everywhere are aghast at [...]
Since nearly all of what passes for Republican “ideas” are invariably sold with laughably improbable predictions of the dire consequences of not adopting them, rather than their relative merit, I seldom bother to pay much attention to them anymore. I suppose it’s psychologically satisfying, on some level, to know that if a sundry Kristol, Cheney, [...]
Is it just me, or is GOP giddiness about their chimerical but purportedly inevitable “sweep” in the next election leading them into near daily outbursts of unseemly candor? Those of us on the left know quite well that they hold their non-rich supporters in utter contempt, but they at least used to recognize that most [...]
The GOP strategy for achieving its already media-trumpeted 2010 landslide is shaping up, and it has to be admired for its sheer audacity, as well as its desperate but hardly unwarranted reliance on the media continuing to be as stupid as it was throughout the Bush years. Richard Cohen, David Broder, and David Gregory are [...]