I’ve been expressing some sympathy for President Obama these last several days. He does, after all, have to put up with the Republicans, for whom I have no sympathy at all. But, as Dahlia Lithwick has recently reminded us, the guy does have his faults. In a recent article in Slate, Dahlia brings us up…
Clueless Candidate in a Pantless Bar
Missouri Republican Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder probably wishes he had kept his mouth shut last winter when he ran into former Penthouse Pet (circa 1992) Tammy Chapman at Verlin’s Bar and Grill in St. Louis, supposedly known for “pantless parties.” But he didn’t, and now Tammy is opening hers, saying that Pete, who had known…
Scapegoats, Please
The Republican Party. Well, that was easy. I could blame poor Tim Geithner, whom I’m starting to feel sorry for. Tim was last seen furiously denouncing Standard & Poors for venturing the opinion that things don’t seem to be working too smoothly down in Washington. Felix Salmon posted a very nice column yesterday morning explaining…
Joo-Heon Kim—“Think of One”
Monk in Korean. Piano: Joo-Heon Kim, Bass: Chang-Hyun Kim, Drums: Hong-Gie Kim. Posted by heonkim80.
The New Yorker, defining deviancy down
Way back in the day, in 1997, to be precise, the New Yorker ran an article by James Traub on the University of Phoenix, not too kindly entitled “Drive-Thru U.: Higher Education for People Who Mean Business (The Next University).” Well, what a difference a decade (and a half) makes. Earlier this year, Harold Ross’…
Literature R Us Retitled
I’m thinking, “Journal of the Plague Year” might be apropos. Jacob Weisberg dissects the slow-motion tragedy of our times here. These days, the Republican Party can be divided into three groups: those who want to destroy the American economy in order to destroy President Obama (see Cantor, Eric); those who want to destroy President Obama…
“Why isn’t he on ‘The View?’”
That’s what Jon “Pretty Boy” Huntsman’s wife has been asking Big Jon’s campaign staff, according to this long, long article in Politico, which probably just destroyed what’s left of Huntsman’s campaign. Newt Gingrich must be thrilled to know that there’s someone out there more dysfunctional than he is, while Mitt Romney, if he doesn’t die…
Economic disaster, followed by wine
Felix Salmon, back in my good graces, has a nice August wrap-up, leading off with Larry Summers’ persuasive take on the debt ceiling disaster—worst deal evah!—and segueing naturally to the price of Bordeaux. Are those crafty chateaux manipulating prices? How French of them! The kicker, according to Felix, is that you can’t short Bordeaux. Better…
Ragin’ heathens, north and south
Michael Lind has a nice piece over at Salon, pointing out that the Tea Party nation has a distinctly southern tinge. Yet it was the Tea Party in Massachusetts—Scott Brown’s election to the Senate to replace massively flawed liberal icon Teddy Kennedy—not the Tea Party in Texas, that has the Obama Administration dazed and confused….
Tim Geithner, irritating me again
I’ve been bitching about Tim Geithner more or less for the life of this blog.* Somehow, the guy always rubs me the wrong way. Well, he’s at it again, as described in this post by Politico’s Anna Palmer: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called together top officials from U.S. business groups Monday for a last minute…