President Obama, if he isn’t looking mortal, is at least looking awkward these days. The current “triple scandal” will, I think, end up costing the President little, but it does give the Republicans something to yell about, and yelling to no effect is what the current crop of Republicans does best. The Administration’s handling of…
Search Results for: Tea Party
Republicans who want to break something
These days, all the Republican talking heads are talking the same thing: refusing to approve an increase in the debt limit would be a disaster for the GOP. The Wall Street Journal, the National Review, Newt Gingrich, they all agree: now is not the time, guys, now is not the time. Let thre Prez win…
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are very different from you and me. They’re totally obnoxious
Chrystia Freeland has scored big time with her portrait of complaining plutocrats in this week’s New Yorker, focusing on Leon Cooperman, an amiable, sort of, billionaire who compulsively refers to President Obama as “a man who never worked a day in his life”—because, according to Cooperman, if you’ve never run your own business, you’ve never…
Jeffrey to Bibi: Nice Jeffrey, Bibi!
On Sunday, Jeffrey Goldberg took Israeli Prime Minister Bib Netanyahu to task for “three mistakes and one achievement”: In re: Prime Minister Netanyahu’s handling of the Iran crisis: 1) Netanyahu shouldn’t have waved around that cartoonish drawing on the podium of the United Nations. It made him look unserious, and a man in his position…
Mississippi being Mississippi
Yes, there are a lot of nice people in Mississippi, but Roy Nicholson, Chairman of the Mississippi Tea Party, isn’t one of them. Reacting to the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, Nicholson went ballistic in a truly southern manner: “With its 5-4 ruling upholding Obamacare the US Supreme Court has joined…
It’s Even Worse Than It Looks—fairly short, fairly sweet
Recently, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein got an enormous amount of play with an opinion piece in the Washington Post, “Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.” Now they’re back with a “book,” It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, which may not be much more than an extended opinion piece, but is worth…
Mitt Romney, the Republican Obama?
Only Nixon could go to China. Only Reagan could end the Cold War. Only Clinton could tame discretionary spending and reform welfare. And only Obama could tame entitlements. Okay, that last one didn’t work out so well. Of course, 95 to 99% of the reason why is that the Republicans didn’t want it to happen….
The Ryan-Boehner, Boehner-Ryan Shell Game
Rep. Paul Ryan has a great idea for getting the U.S. budget in shape. He’ll cut tax rates, and Democrats will decide which tax write-offs to eliminate. “Everything will be on the table,” Rep. Paul says, and he means everything. If the Democrats want to eliminate deductability of health insurance costs, home mortgages, tuition, he’ll…
Jonathan Chait, having discovered that Obama isn’t that liberal, prefers not to be reminded of that fact
Last week, Jonathan Chait, heretofore one of President Obama’s most passionate defenders, wrote a bitter piece in New York magazine entitled “How Obama Tried to Sell Out Liberalism in 2011,” bouncing off the latest “what went wrong” tick-tock in a long series of what went wrong tick-tocks on the Obama Administration, this one written by…
David Brooks, getting all meshugana because no one will save his fat ass
Over at the NYT, David Brooks gives forth with this primal scream of primal hypocrisy, suddenly noticing that the forces of modern conservatism, which he has aided and abetted for the past twenty years to great personal profit, constitute little more than a mob of know-nothing gangstas. Here’s Dave’s thumbnail of how we got to…