Last Saturday night, over dinner and drinks, the President of the United States was overheard saying:
Michael Steele is in the house tonight. Or as he would say, ‘In the heezy.’
Wazzup!
For the last time, Michael, the Republican Party does not qualify for a bailout. Rush Limbaugh does not count as a ‘troubled asset.’
That’s right. At [...]
Obama meets the press
Critical Review: Frank Rich
Horatio of the Political Stage
April 07, 2009
When the history of our age is written, Frank Rich will be known as one of the early 21st-century’s best journalists — he belongs in the pantheon alongside H.L. Mencken, Edward R. Murrow, Mike Royko, and Walter Cronkite. With a background in theatre criticism, he swiftly understood the [...]
Three Cheers for Laissez-Faire Economics! (Right Until the Crisis)
Originally published March 26, 2008.
DailyKos reports that John McCain, after boldly stating that he would propose methods to deal with the mortgage crisis, “offered no major prescriptions for quelling turbulence” (LAT). DailyKos further notes that:
– McCain voted against discouraging predatory lending practices. In 2005, McCain voted against an amendment prohibiting law-breaking high-cost predatory mortgage lenders [...]
Flashback: We are Here (August 31, 2005, after Hurricane Katrina)
We Are Here
It is time for us to speak clearly and first.
It is time for us to know where we are.
History, today, in the broad sense is both too fast and too slow. We are aware of both every roadside bomb in Iraq and the name of every designer brand on Jessica Simpson, though Iraq [...]
Entering Sector D
The Washington Post today has a piece by staff writer Henry Allen called “Entering Sector D.” Naturally, given my name, I was interested. This is the first paragraph and-a-half:
There’s something about the word “disembowel.” Or “depravity,” or “disfigurement” — about so many words that begin with the letter “d.” Divorce, destitution, doubt, drugs, dirt, dwindle. [...]
Your Coca-Cola sign, rattling (December 5, 2003)
We are beginning to witness the failure of democracy and the rise of plutocratic empire. De Tocqueville and Franklin predicted it; perhaps de Tocqueville was the more prescient when he admitted representative democracy’s keystone fault lay in both voters’ and representatives’ predilection for acting in one’s short-term self-interest. Democracy only succeeds when education allows the [...]
“I have seen the enemy, and he is us.” — Pogo, by Walt Kelly (February 27, 2003)
This is just beautiful. After praising the counter-terrorism budget for several days, the White House finally began to concede that they budgeted far too little — about $2 billion less than the President proposed in his State of the Union address. So the President of course blames Congress. Apparently forgetting for the moment that both [...]
The green-eyed monster (February 24, 2003)
I have just about had it with armchair psychologico-pundits repeating that arrogant and insipid old saw about European anti-Americanism being nothing more than misdirected envy over the loss of their Continental empires. That’s simply not close to the case.
The only Britons who wail over the loss of Rule Britannia are the most plum-mouthed of Tories. [...]
Even When he Tells the Truth, he Lies (February 18, 2003)
WASHINGTON, February 18 (AP) — President Bush declared on Tuesday that he wouldn’t be deterred by global protests against war with Iraq, saying “I respectfully disagree” with those who doubt that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace.
You and I both know that his disagreement has not been voiced with an iota of respect for [...]
Duelling Idealisms (February 14, 2003)
Instapundit received an email from an Iraqi reader of The Guardian. It reads:
“I write this to protest against all those people who oppose the war against Saddam Hussein, or as they call it, the “war against Iraq”. I am an Iraqi doctor, I worked in the Iraqi army for six years during Iraq-Iran war and [...]
Take Me to the Redress of the Mis-Stated Dis-Onion (January 28, 2003)
Take me to the Redress of the Mistated Dis-Onion
The Washington Post today has an interview with Norman Schwartzkopf, who considers the entire prospect of war a thoroughly dubious proposal, and, in notsomanywords, considers ol’ Rummy perhaps the worst — and yet most prominent — PR executive this administration possesses. “Scary,” was how he labled Rumsfeld’s [...]
Of the People, By the People, For the People
Of the People, By the People, For the People (January 10, 2004)
According to former Treas. Sec. Paul O’Neill, planning for the Iraq war began days after the Presidential inauguration in 2001. The grand strategy was formulated by those now considered the Neoconservative advisers, in a memo to Clinton in 1998.
My frustration is not that this was [...]
The Sweetest Two Words in the Dictionary: Stephen Colbert
The sweetest two words in the dictionary. (May 2, 2006)
Our patriotic propagandists in the mainstream media are responding to charges that they failed to cover Stephen Colbert’s flaying of the president and the press, and in a most presidential fashion: claiming it “just wasn’t funny enough” to merit a mention.
Personally, I would like to know [...]
Death in Life and Life in Death: The Verdict of Moussaoui
Death in Life and Life in Death (April 25, 2006)
Moussaoui is the best argument I’ve ever heard against the death penalty. It is utterly useless for administering any of the three putative justifications for state-ordered murder.
It is useless as a deterrent since it is perceived as martyrdom (when did the execution of Christians in ancient [...]
Dear Soon-to-be-former Press Secretary Scott McClellan,
Dear Soon-to-be-former Press Secretary Scott McClellan, (April 19, 2006)
When you rose to your post after Ari, looking for all intents and purposes like a headlight shot out of a deer, I thought you were stupid and contemptuous. Often I have pitied you. In time, however, much have I given you a grudging respect, admiring your [...]
When Moses was in Nixon’s Land…
When Moses was in Nixon’s Land… (March 1, 2006)
As I was growing up in late-’70s America, as I received the sub-ether waves of ideological waves emanating from the television set (oh, and I watched much more of it, dear reader, than you know — but less than most even still) and from my parents and [...]
Of Weasels and Whales: Iraq (October 10, 2002)
HAMLET: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?
POLONIUS: By th’mass and ‘tis — like a camel indeed.
HAMLET: Methinks it is like a weasel.
POLONIUS: It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET: Or like a whale.
POLONIUS: Very like a whale.
“The world changed on September 11.” Yes, surely, of course.
But which September 11 would [...]
Entering the Realms of the Unreal
Entering the Realms of the Unreal
February 17, 2006
According to the New York Times, four appeals are currently about to be argued in the Supreme Court March 1. The cases each allege that the Texas congressional redistricting (read: gerrymandering) that Tom Delay achieved in 2003 were for partisan purposes.
The White House has asked, and has been [...]
Truth is Called Theory Before Facts can Reveal
Truth is called Theory before Facts can Reveal
February 23, 2006
Following this Guardian article on the Bush administration’s insistence to go to war — even absent any evidence of Iraq’s WMD’s — and this lengthier assessment in the latest New York Review of Books, plus Bush’s most recent State of the Union address, I have come [...]
