Here is Peggy Noonan: “He [Obama] misread his Republican opponents from day one. If he had been large-spirited and conciliatory he would have effectively undercut them, and kept them from uniting. (If he’d been large-spirited with Mr. Romney, he would have undercut him, too.) Instead he was toughly partisan, he shut them out, and positions…
Author: Alan Vanneman
You don’t get to call yourself Tom Friedman unless you are Tom Friedman
NYT columnist Thomas L. Friedman is one of the most parodied men in the world, but last Sunday he proved, once again, that no one does Tom Friedman like Tom Friedman does Tom Friedman. In a column labeled “Why I Am Pro-Life,” Manhattan Tom pours most laborious contempt all over fly-over fuck-ups like Richard Mourdock…
Vote for the Murderer, not the Would-Be Murderer
That’s my advice if you live in a swing state. Living in DC, with Libertarian Gary Johnson on the ballot, I have the luxury of making a protest vote. I’m not into libertarian economics, but Johnson’s foreign policy views are more than a breath of fresh air. DC will go so heavily for Obama that…
Felix Salmon hits it out of the park
I know it seems like I only write about Felix Salmon when 1) I’m desperate for a post and 2) I need someone to make fun of, but that’s not entirely true. At least, it’s not true today, which confirms my thesis, because today I’m all raves over Felix’s fabulous piece kicking the shit out…
Trinkle-Tinkle
Roy Haynes, drums, David Kikoski, piano John Patitucci, bass. Posted by emmadetten
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here. “Stop whining! Get it right and we’ll make them forget all about Snooki!” “This is going to be huge. I can feel it.” “Yeah, I was thinking ‘Gangnam Style’ too, but, you know, more intense. Can we hire that guy?” “OK, I know this a lot to take in all at once….
Ross Douthat’s Aura of Deceit
Ross Douthat has a posting, here, titled Obama’s Aura of Defeat. According to Ross, Obama’s campaign is sucking wind: Losing campaigns have a certain feel to them: They go negative hard, try out new messaging very late in the game, hype issues that only their core supporters are focused on, and try to turn non-gaffes…
William Rehnquist, still elusive
Neither John Jenkins nor his new book, The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist, have gotten much respect on the web. Both University of Chicago Law Professor Eric A. Posner at the sometimes liberal New Republic and Kevin R.C. Gutzman, professor of history at Western Connecticut State University, writing for the unconventionally conservative American Conservative,…
Romney tax plan, re-refuted
Josh Barro explains, again!, why Romney’s tax plan—cutting tax rates and eliminating tax deductions (or “preferences”) without hurting regular folks like you and me—won’t work. Because it’s us regular folks who get all the tax breaks! Tax returns reporting less than $200,000 of adjusted gross income (AGI) [that’s us folks] accounted for a total AGI…
How many stupid foreign policy advisors does President Obama have? One less than he used to
Foreign Policy is a pretty serious magazine, right? No Best Bikini Bods need apply. And a job title like “Counselor to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy” sounds pretty intense. So why does a recent article in Foreign Policy by Rosa Brooks, former Counselor to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy at the…