Over at the National Review, Peter Nordlinger, a conservative anti-Trumper of the highest water, has these words to say about Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), who has announced that he will not run for reelection in 2022: Portman knows things — a lot of them. He has a strong commitment to the American system, undergirded by…
Peter Beinart tries harder. Much harder.
In a recent post, Try harder, Mr. Beinart,1 I subjected Peter Beinart to brief ridicule for perpetuating now ancient myths from John F. Kennedy’s half-forgotten “New Frontier” when he expressed the wish, in a column for the New York Times, that more Republican senators would present “profiles in courage”, so to speak, and vote the…
Only 90% of Republican Senators Are Cowards! That’s such an improvement!
Well, it is. Yes, only 5 of 50 Republican senators voted to proceed with Donald Trump’s second impeachment. On the other hand, on the occasion of his first impeachment, only 2 of 53 Republicans voted even to hear witnesses. 90% versus 96.2%? That’s progress, baby! I’m impressed! I confess that I saw this coming. It…
Live from Here with Chris Thile—“Rhythm-a-ning”
Posted by Live from Here. The YouTube page lists as “musicians” Mike Elizondo, Eric Doob, Armand Hirsch, Gabriel Kahane, Jeremy Kittel. The Live from Here site doesn’t bother to tell us who plays what.
Will Geography Damn Us? Probably.
Al Gore won the presidency in 2000 by almost half a million votes. Hillary Clinton won in 2016 by almost three million. Joe Biden would have won the presidency in 2020 sans COVID-19 by, probably, about six million votes. Yet, in fact, Gore lost to Bush, Hillary lost to Trump, and sans COVID Joe very…
Good News? Are you sure?
Okay, Joe Biden’s in the White House, and that’s GREAT NEWS! But there’s more! One hundred and thirty four civil rights groups have joined the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights to send a letter to Congress saying that the U.S. already has plenty of statutes that allow the federal government to address the…
Beegie Adair & The Real Thing—“Rhythm-a-ning”
Pianist Beegie Adair explains the origin of Thelonious Monk’s “Rhythm-a-ning”, one of the endless riffs on the chord changes for George Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm”. Then she plays both tunes in a sort of medley, sans video, with Roger Spencer on bass and Chris Brown, drums. Check out Beegie here.
Please, Mr. Beinart, try harder
Over at the New York Times, Peter Beinart has a column, “Why Are There So Few Courageous Senators?”, which takes as its text—well, in its first half, anyway—John F. Kennedy’s “famous” book, Profiles in Courage, citing two profiles, “two legendary Southerners, Thomas Hart Benton and Sam Houston, who a century earlier had become pariahs for…
McConnell to Trump: “You weren’t supposed to use me! I was supposed to use you!”
WashPost reporters Josh Dawsey and Ashley Parker fill us in on what future historians will undoubtedly refer to as “the Revolt of the Bitches”—the painfully reluctant decision of Vice President Mike Pence not to fulfill President Trump’s demand that his Veep piss all over the U.S. Constitution and unilaterally declare Donald Trump effectively President for…
The Billiard Ball Causality of Francis Fukuyama, Together With Other Considerations
I have recently finished reading Francis Fukuyama’s excellent book, Identity The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, published back in 2018, trying to explain why the world isn’t behaving the way Francis and I think it ought, and not doing a bad job of it at all. I’ve written round and about Dr….