David Brooks’ most recent column is an extravagant intellectual tour de force, springing off an essay written by Lewis Mumford for the New Republic back in 1940, chastising his fellow “pragmatic” liberals for failing to understand the menace of totalitarianism. Brooks presents Mumford’s argument as follows: Mumford’s nominal subject was his fellow liberals’ tendency, in…
Search Results for: Liberalism
James Thurber, A Reader’s Guide, Part 21
INTRODUCTION This is the 20th episode of “James Thurber, A Reader’s Guide,” a rambling consideration of Thurber’s works, examining his life and work in some detail. Generally, these appear every Friday. The links to the first part and the most recent part are given below. Part 21 continues the discussion of The Male Animal, Thurber’s…
James Thurber, A Reader’s Guide, Part 19
INTRODUCTION This is the 19th episode of “James Thurber, A Reader’s Guide,” a rambling consideration of Thurber’s works, examining his life and work in some detail. Generally, these appear every Friday. The links to the first part and the most recent part are given below. Part 19 discusses the genesis of Thurber’s one and only…
De Blasio as bad as Obama, sez AP
Call it the new liberalism: In nearly five months in office, [New York City Mayor Bill] de Blasio barred the media from 53 events and limited access to 30 more, an Associated Press analysis of de Blasio’s schedule shows. On a handful of days, his entire schedule was off limits. All told, more than 20…
Sean Wilentz, last seen falling on his big, fat ass
It’s totally unnecessary, but I will join the pile-on squishing poor old Sean Wilentz for his attempted take-down of Glenn Greenwald, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden for the terrible crime of telling Sean more than he wanted to know about his government is doing. Andrew Sullivan administers an abbreviated beat-down while Henry Farrell supplies the…
Detroit Denial: A Democratic Disease (but not entirely!)
Remember when we were told that the average retired city worker in Detroit was receiving a pension of no more than $19,000 a year? Well, it turns out that was only sort of accurate. In fact, when there was extra money in the pension system, it was paid out in the form of “bonuses to…
Smashing Time
Dave Weigel has a nice piece over at Slate explaining why the Tea Party Republicans in the House won’t negotiate with Obama. Because they think he’s lying, about everything. Everything that anyone in the Executive Branch says about the government shutdown and the debt ceiling is a lie. In fact, any statement, by any expert,…
The Post Re-Bezosed
Why did Jeff Bezos buy the Washington Post? Knows God, as the saying goes. As everyone knows, Bezos and Amazon have been totally about the process; the customers sort out the content for themselves. As Felix Salmon notes, Jeff has never had to deal with “talent,” which is what journalists like to think they are….
It’s Whiter than White: It’s Republican White!
Sam Tannenhaus has a very good read at the New Republic about how the Republican Party, and Sen. Barry Goldwater in particular, traveled from being the champions of racial integration to being the defenders, not of segregation, but of the “right to segregate’—“neither a segregated society nor an integrated society, but a free society,” as…
You don’t get to call yourself Tom Friedman unless you are Tom Friedman
NYT columnist Thomas L. Friedman is one of the most parodied men in the world, but last Sunday he proved, once again, that no one does Tom Friedman like Tom Friedman does Tom Friedman. In a column labeled “Why I Am Pro-Life,” Manhattan Tom pours most laborious contempt all over fly-over fuck-ups like Richard Mourdock…