I have been in the past quite complimentary of Wash Post columnist Robert Samuelson. Well, I can’t take it all back because Bob often gets it right. But in this wretched post, “Defunding defense,” Bob gets it grossly and gratuitously wrong. It’s the “gratuitously” part that I can’t forgive, although the “grossly” part is, in…
Search Results for: george will
The Usual Suspects
Daniel Larison gives them each a good spanking over at the American Conservative—William “Bill the Shill” Kristol, Peggy “Peggy the Shrill” Noonan, and George “George the Pill” Will, all hawkin’ and squawkin’ about the failure of President Obama to 1) make all the world’s problems go away with a wave of his hand (in the…
What Robert Gates said that no one said he said
Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, former Secretary of State Robert Gates’ memoirs of his years as SecDef, have been excerpted and/or discussed by the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. If you follow this sort of thing, you know that Bob loved Hillary, definitely a feather in her…
Obama Bubble? Nuh-uh
What’s Obama’s problem? The Wash Post’s Dana Milbank “explains”: In one account of what even administration officials acknowledge is a debacle, the Wall Street Journal reported that Obama’s policy advisers were aware long ago that the president’s promise that “if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it” wouldn’t hold up. “White House policy…
The Bossa Boys: “Bright Mississippi”
Definitely amateur video still brings us jazz on a summer’s day as the Bossa Boys have a good time with Thelonious Monk’s reworking of “Sweet George Brown.” Posted by burkowitz
Mitty Novus
I have been laboring through an increasingly extensive survey of the works of James Thurber. A few “spin-offs” have already appeared, here and here. Today’s shtick is a bit longer. From my researches, I’ve learned that Thurber originally intended to include in his most famous story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” an episode that…
John Fedchock: “Epistrophy”
“A little checking informs me that I’ve run John Fedchock and the New York Big Band doing “Ruby, My Dear” twice. But I’ve never run them doing “Epistrophy.” So here it is. Posted by bonegasm New Trier Jazz Festival, New Trier High School, Winnetka, Il. SOLOISTS: Scott Wendholt – trumpet, Rich Perry – tenor sax,…
The Silence of the Hawks
One would have thought that Vladimir Putin’s* end zone victory dance in the New York Times would have produced an outraged chorus of right-wing “I told you so’s” loud enough to be heard on Mars—if, contrary to fact, sound waves could travel through a vacuum. But even they could, they still wouldn’t, because the right’s…
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…
Reid Wilson, not getting it, and not getting that he’s not getting it
Over at Slate, Dave Wiegel, whom I usually enjoy, links without irony to the National Journal’s Reid Wilson, who files a heartfelt moan titled “When Washington Forgot How To Negotiate Dispute over the farm bill is a textbook example of the dysfunction within Congress.” Speaking of the farm bill debacle, Wilson explains the current Democratic/Republican…