Why I Don't Watch 'Hardball' Anymore
16 May 2008 3:39am GMT Via TPM, some painfully hilarious historical illiteracy from a right-wing talk show host:Seriously, though, it's not like this reflects very well on Chris Matthews, either. Why is he inviting such an obnoxious moron onto his show? There are plenty of people who could represent the conservative position here with some intelligence and class. Why not try to schedule them? Matthews clearly has some coherent views about diplomacy--it would be far more useful to have a debate with someone...
George W. Bush, Ironist
16 May 2008 12:41am GMT Did anyone else find Bush's speech before the Israeli Knesset today a little ironic? At one point, he made a version of the Obama argument that people everywhere pretty much want the same thing, and that we can achieve it if we're not distracted by cynics who exploit fear and difference for political purposes. See this riff on what the Middle East will look like in 60 years: Overall, the Middle East will be characterized by a new period of tolerance and...
Location, Location, Location
16 May 2008 12:03am GMT President Bush's thinly-veiled shot at Barack Obama was, in the words of Obama's spokesman, "an unprecedented political attack on foreign soil." Jamie objects, "Bush has every right to criticize" his political opponents. I think Jamie's missing the point of the last three words -- "on foreign soil." Obviously, it's not unprecedented for a president to criticize his political opponents. What's unprecedented is for a president to do so before the...
Bird? Plane? Crazy Dude with a Jetpack?
15 May 2008 11:09pm GMT Seeing as how it's never really going to be the future until people can fly around with their own personal jetpacks, this seems like a historical landmark of sorts: The accompanying AP story piles on all sorts of pesky caveats: The Swiss pilot, Yves Rossy (known as the "Fusion Man"), had to first leap out of a plane in order to fly the thing around. He can't land it, either, not without a parachute. And he has to wear...
Contest: Rebrand the House GOP
15 May 2008 11:06pm GMT There's all kinds of brand anxiety over in the House GOP right now -- In his outraged memo to the party yesterday, GOP Rep. Tom Davis wrote that "Members instinctively understand that the Republican brand is in the trash can. I’ve often observed that if we were a dog food, they would take us off the shelf." So, here's a contest for commenters: What existing advertising slogan should the angry, dazed, floundering House Republicans be using to describe their...
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