I don’t mean to dump on Politico columnist Jack Shafer—well, actually, I do mean to dump on him, but I’d prefer not to admit it—but his latest column, Trump’s Alternate Reality Hits a New Crazy Note with Dr. Oz all too accurately describes the very real menace that Donald Trump presents to American democracy and…
Tag: Donald Trump
Thank God for the National Review!
I’m generally not a huge fan of the National Review, but, well, I’m in an excitable mood these days, ready to let out a mighty cheer of affirmation at the drop of a hat, really, and the folks at NR dropped a lot more than that when they published an absolutely sensational piece by one…
Yo, Ross Douthat! William Jennings Bryan was no Donald Trump!
My God! Has it already been almost five months since I last insulted Ross Douthat? Well, time flies when you’re fightin’ the COVID, I guess (a very mild case, fortunately). But now I’m back, definitely, and loaded for bear! Not to mention smart-mouth conservatives! What got me a little ticked was a recent Ross confection,…
Chick fight! Chick fight! Bill Barr does The Donald, and vice versa.
“I would imagine that if the book is anything like him, it will be long, slow, and very boring.” Okay, that is probably not Donald Trump’s description of former attorney general William Barr’s sexual technique, but, well, you never know. This lover’s spat was set off by Bill’s attempt to hype his new book, which…
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…
Mike Pence goes INSANE! Says the American presidency belongs to the American people
Did someone put LSD in Mike Pence’s milkshake? Did he have a drink with a woman who was not his wife without the presence of the woman who is his wife? I doubt if we’ll ever know, but, whatever the cause, I’ll be eternally grateful, because Big Mike, speaking to a friendly (I hope) crowd…
Yuval Levin (and Ramesh Ponnuru and Ross Douthat) and the utter hypocrisy of the “responsible Republican”
Yuval Levin, hailed by none other than Lyin’ Paulie Ryan as a serious conservative thinker, has a ponderous, and thoroughly repulsive “think piece” up at the New York Times, Democrats, Voting Rights Are Not the Problem, in which he tries to pretend that there are good arguments for election law reform “on both sides”! Because…
Passive-aggressive hypocrisy hath made its masterpiece: The Volokh Conspiracy’s conspiracy against the rule of law
The Volokh Conspiracy is a website that describes itself as “Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent”. They forgot to add “Frequently Lukidist”. The eponymous founder of said conspiracy is Eugene Volokh. To call Gene’s c.v. “glittering” is probably the understatement of the decade. A bona fide mathematical genius, he…
Jonah Goldberg, cannons to the left of him, cannons to the right of him
A week or too ago I took an entirely justified crack at poor old Jonah Goldberg, deservedly lumping him together with the likes of Ross Douthat, Jack Shafer, Daniel Drezner and Ramesh Ponnuru as pussy-footing semi-Never Trumpers for acknowledging that the Big Guy himself was entirely unacceptable while denying that he constituted a real threat…
Dan and Jack refuted; Kagan expanded
Are Dan Drezner and Jack Shafer Brothers of the Asp? Because they certainly are Queens of Denial. Both Dan How scared should we be about 2024? and Jack Why the Fear of Trump May Be Overblown cast a cold eye if not cold water on Robert Kagan’s widely discussed and damn well verging on magisterial…