Never underestimate the power of the human voice. After spending 13 hours of floor time warning America of the dangers of Hellfire missiles descending upon them as they bathe, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is suddenly the toast of much, though not all, of the Republican Party. After months of aimless pummeling with the President over…
Search Results for: ROSS DOUTHAT
The Divine Right of Popes
As a lapsed Episcopalian,* I haven’t resisted having a chuckle at the expense of all the Catholics scurrying about trying to make sense of Benedict XVI’s decision to abdicate. Ross Douthat does a pretty good job, agreeing that it makes sense to have a vigorous and active leader seated in St. Peter’s chair, but then…
Krauthammer doubles to right
As the few who read this blog know, there are few people I dislike more than arch neo-con Charles Krauthammer. But, as a stopped clock is right twice a day, so Krauthammer is right twice a decade. In a recent column, he whales away mightily at President Obama’s Second Inaugural, accusing the President of “clinging…
Whither Republicans?
Is it too soon to wonder about what’s going to happen to the Republican Party after the defeat of Mitt Romney? Well, yes, it is, but what the fuck, it’s fun, so let’s do it. Mitt really put his foot in it, or on it, with his now famous though beginning to recede a bit…
Mitch Daniels, Man of Steel
Is there anything more pathetic than a liberal like myself, who sees “his” President, Barack Obama, as the tool of both Wall Street and the CIA? Well, apparently there is, the fate of big-city conservatives like Ross Douthat and Bill Kristol, who are wetting their collective worsteds over the prospect of either Newt or Mitt…
For the children, goddamnit, for the children
In a recent posting in the NYT, bible thumpin’ Ross Douthat warns the Christian right to stay the fuck away from Newt Gingrich: “It isn’t just that he’s a master of selective moral outrage whose newfound piety has been turned to consistently partisan ends. It’s that his personal history — not only the two divorces,…
What is George’s game?
On Monday, I sneered at George Will’s sneering takedown of Mitt Romney. In the couse of his tirade, George also dealt President Obama a glancing sneer, dismissing him as a “floundering naïf,” though I think “bloodthirsty” might have been a more appropriate adjective.* Well, if George hates Mitt, and hates Obama, who does he want…
Charles to Rick: You’re embarrassing me!
Hear that moanin’? It’s right-wing intellectuals, a-wishin’ and a-hopin’ that someone other than Rick Perry and Mitt Romney would run for president.* “I would hope that whoever the Republican candidate is, he or she will not tell us that creationism or intelligent design is the equivalent of evolution — just another theory about the origins…
Because he can’t win, or because he can?
The Wall Street Journal editorial page, easily my least favorite site on the web, bemoans the weak Republican field. Michele Bachmann, they claim, “has a record of errant statements” (as if the Journal doesn’t), has seemed “on occasion less principled than opportunistic” (Oh, snap!), and (the topper) “Americans are already living with the consequences of…
The use and self-abuse of history, William Kristol edition
Over at the Weekly Standard, William Kristol is musing about history, or at least pretending to. After muttering and mumbling about Ames and such, Billy posts his nut graph (three of them, actually, but they’re short) at the very end of his column: Should Republicans yield to history, and resign themselves to a Romney-Perry choice?…