The new report from the Congressional Budget Office on Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007 is causing a fair amount of heartburn on the right. Apparently, the news that the folks at the top of the pole (the top 1 percent) more than doubled their share of the nation’s income,…
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Rick Perry: Eisenhower Republican or High Country Mussolini?
Yeah, it’s Rick, Rick, nothin’ but Rick here at Literature R Us. The man who could be president is certainly becoming a bee in my bonnet, and I’m longing to let him out soon. But the fact is that I’ve applied both lapels to Rick in recent posts. Can’t I make up my mind? It’s…
As a patriotic American, it is your duty to make Ralph Douthat happy
Well, it is. Ralph himself says so in this post, directed at wiseguys Jonathan Chait and Daniel Larison, who have been making fun of Ralph’s continuing obsession with asthmatic lardbutt Chris Christie. Getting just a wee bit testy with Jon and Dan for not agreeing with him about Chris, Ralph lets fly with the following…
When Obama officials cash out—a sordid tale, at least 11.1111111111111111111111111111% of the time
The New Republic has a snappy slide show, “Obama Officials Cash Out,” a rogue’s gallery that leads with Peter Orszag, former director of the Office of Management and Budget, now hanging with Citigroup, decidedly not my favorite bank. Orszag probably won’t spend all his time doling out million-dollar bribes to high-end Manhattan pre-schools in order…
El Stevo—even when he isn’t funny, he’s funny, sort of
I have, somewhere or other on the web, remarked that Steve Martin often is not funny these days. He takes himself too seriously, and resents having to appease the many-headed with, you know, humor. But Steve still can be funny, with David Letterman, for example. Hanging with Dave, who is, of course, as self-pitying and…
Suffering white Christians, suffering at Harvard
Ross Douthat, whom I in the past have unkindly—and even perhaps unjustly—referred to as Ross Dumb Fuck—is at it again, bemoaning the suffering of white Christians, citing a study by Princeton sociologists, Thomas Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford for support. According to Ross, Espenshade and Radford provide “statistical confirmation for what alumni of highly selective…
Highly selective outrage, Alan Vanneman health care edition
Over at Forbes, Shikha Dalmia works herself into a rage over the passage of ObamaCare via such parliamentary tricks as, you know, majority rule, and offers the following summation: “It is hardly surprising then that Americans are feeling a growing panic as they watch their constitutional republic descend into a banana republic.” Shikha, honey, the…
Terrorist threat approaches zero
Well, that’s one conclusion that could be drawn from the recent events involving Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. After all, the number of would-be terrorists who have been apprehended attempting to smuggle explosives on a plane approaches zero; the number of would-be terrorists who have succeeded in smuggling explosives on a plane also approaches zero; and the…
Early Jeanne, Early Louis, Early Miles
Ever see the flick about the young Parisian car thief who steals an American convertible, find a gun in the glove compartment, kills a guy, and goes down for it? How about the one about a young couple who get involved in murder over a stolen car and fantasize about dying together with their pictures…
The Washington Post agrees with me
The Washington Post editorial page, which can be quite prescient when not talking complete nonsense on Iraq, agrees with me that the real outrage emerging from the Hillary/Mark Penn imbroglio is that Penn is being fired for lobbying in favor of free trade with Colombia. The Post makes the achingly obvious case for the free-trade…