I used to not subscribe to the New Yorker because I couldn’t stand its snotty, Upper West Side Jacobinism. Now I don’t subscribe because of its snotty, Upper West Side neo-fascism. At least, that seems to be the case, thanks to NY staff writer Jeffrey Toobin’s new “theory” that journalism is a crime. Toobin, who…
Chris Christie, everyone’s favorite fat fascist
“I think we have some folks who believe that our job is to be college professors. Now college professors are fine I guess. Being a college professor, they basically spout out ideas that nobody does anything about. For our ideas to matter we have to win. Because if we don’t win, we don’t govern. And…
The “Golden Hour” that wasn’t; an old Iraqi hand pretends that we could have gotten it right
James Clad is an adjunct fellow at Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. According to NDU’s website, “Before joining the National Defense University’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies James Clad was U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia from 2007-09. He also served as…
Robert Samuelson: Yes, I am an idiot. Why do you ask?
Robert Samuelson, several eons ago a competent reporter, ends a column on a housing market still constrained by tight credit in the following manner: Public policy faces a contradiction. There’s a powerful impulse to blame banks for the financial crisis and to “make them pay.” Just recently, the Obama administration sued Bank of America, charging…
The National Review explains: “We’re not racist! We hate white winos too!
Jonathan Chait has an excellent piece at New York magazine, making the same point I did last week; Republicans aren’t waging a “war” against black voters. It’s merely a sustained, unrelenting skirmish—kind of a skirmish to the death. Jon catches the National Review with its pants, morals, and intellect at half mast, “explaining” why the…
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here. “Au contraire, mademoiselle. ‘Tubby the Tuba’ is not a cliché. It is a gift of the gods.” “Let me just warn you ahead of time. I intend to get all Katy Perry on your ass with this one.” “I love castanets. I just don’t work with castanets.” “Why not ‘Feelings’? Because it’s…
Ross Douthat’s false equivalencies
Ross Douthat isn’t always wrong. It’s just that I only write about him when he is. Or, more precisely, when he’s being deceitful. In a recent post, Ross tries to argue that, just because Republicans are trying to reduce the number of black voters (which, Ross admits uncomfortably, they are), that isn’t so bad, because…
Jack Germond, fat and deceitful. But funny!
Back in the day, Jack Germond “explained” his presence on TV thusly: sure, his heart was in print, but he needed the money to put his daughters through college. A guy’s supposed to help his daughters, isn’t he? Well, sure. But as Jack later “explained” in his autobiography, Fat Man in a Middle Seat, he…
Mickey Kaus, still alive
Still alive, and still paranoid! Yes, the Mickster, whom I’d just about forgotten about, is pushing his unique brand of jive at, where else, the Daily Caller. Mick’s latest and greatest is to do something I would have thought impossible—attack Texas senator and right-wing attack dog Ted Cruz from the right! How did he do…