Yeah, Blobists! Or Establishmentarians, or whatever you like to call yourselves these days! What is the deal with this hardnosiosity, or perhaps rhinosaurusism, that is coming to the fore with regard to Saudi Arabia? I first noticed, and bewailed, this unfortunate “trend” last March, when I faulted Atlantic editor Jeff Goldberg for pushing the line…
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CRT v. Anti-CRT: Wait, Wait! You’re BOTH Right! Occasionally.
OCTOBER 6, 2022 UPDATE: In the course of this report—somewhere in the middle—I discuss crime data from the FBI. I should have pointed out that these data are estimates rather than complete tallies. We don’t know, for example, that there were 10,440 homicides in the U.S. in 2020, although the FBI says we do. I…
Ukrainians brave, Russians cowards! Ukraine good, Russia bad! Well, yeah, but couldn’t I get a little nuance on the side?
War, no matter what anyone wants to tell you, is not a morality play, where one side is ever brave and virtuous, and the other ever sneering and evil. And, to amplify that point a little, we shouldn’t end up fighting World War III just because the Russian invasion of Ukraine is deeply immoral. The…
Andrew Sullivan gets it wrong twice!
Over at Andrew Sullivan’s substack blog, the Weekly Dish, Andy has a strange post, strangely titled The Strange Rebirth Of Imperial Russia, expressing bewilderment over the fact that Russian bad ass Vladimir Putin actually seems to be longing for the good old days, when Imperial Russia styled itself the “Third Rome”, independent of, and superior…
War! What is it good for? Circulation!
Oh, yeah. There is nothing like a war—in particular, a good guys versus bad guys war—to pump up the circulation, to attract eyeballs—to cable talk shows, network news (OK, I haven’t actually seen one since, well, 2001, but I’m assured they still exist), websites, podcasts, videocasts, etc., etc. etc. I’m told they even have the…
Literature R Us Special Conspiracy Edition: Mohammed Bin Salman, Graeme Wood, Jeffrey Goldberg, and Eugene Volokh! Oh, yeah, and Rothschild space lasers too!
Seriously, those Rothschild space lasers are a bitch! They zapped me a couple of years ago, and I’ve been incredibly stupid ever since. So here’s the deal. A couple of days ago, the Atlantic ran a long article by Graeme Wood on Saudi Kingfish Mohammed Bin Salman, Absolute Power, based, according to Wood, on three…
Dan Drezner, last seen regressin’ to the mean like a motherf*cker
O rare Dan Drezner!1 Oy vey, Dan Drezner! Just last week I was falling all over myself with praise for Dan’s all too acute post The war in Ukraine is going badly for everyone, which Dan then followed up with another depressingly acute corker, What is the plan behind sanctioning Russia?, pointing out that the…
Moral, moral, who’s got a moral? Well, Daniel Drezner has one, and I think it’s depressingly accurate.
I so often disagree with Dan that I sometimes try to apologize for it, but his recent post, The war in Ukraine is going badly for everyone, is depressingly spot on. Dan ends his incisive piece with the following grim paragraphs: We have entered a new Cold War, which is not something I say lightly….
Is Joe Biden playing four-dimensional chess in Ukraine?
Well, probably not, but it does look like he’s got a nice three-carom billiard shot at home, bouncing Vladimir Putin off of both Tucker Carlson and Mitch McConnell as a way of exacerbating the friction between the True-Trumpers like Tucker and the “Why Won’t He JUST FUCKING DIE ALREADY!” crowd headed by Mitch himself. If…
Political Notes from All Over
Turnout, Turnout, Turnout! Why Democrats love it and Republicans hate it. Ruy Teixeira, a Democratic political centrist after my own heart, has a post up at his Substack blog, The Liberal Patriot, How Not to Build a Coalition, arguing, correctly, in my opinion, “High turnout is just not the magic key to Democratic victories the…