They were like cannibals, eating their own party and leaders alive. They were like vampires, draining their country’s reputation, credit rating and compassion. Maureen Dowd on the Tea Party Republicans that turned Washington D.C. into a political horror show.
What does the theory of punctuated equilibrium have to do with modern-day American politics? Dan Vergano of USA Today has an intriguing piece that makes the connection: In the 1990’s, amid widespread complaints of “gridlock” in Washington, the notion of political punctuated equilibrium “was born from dissatisfaction with the idea of everything being fixed and…Continue Reading…
Last night was a double treat for me: I dodged the torturous bedtime ritual and attended a smart debate about politics. (Afterwards, I was so covetous of my freedom that I skipped down 5th Avenue like an escaped convict, unsure of what to do next.) Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised to…Continue Reading…
Poor Newt. The preemptive spanks came early and hard. Even his scrap-the-EPA mantra hasn’t won over Marc Morano, who this morning emailed a blistering missive to everyone in his rolodex. UPDATE: Great post headline from Andrew Sullivan, who provides an excellent round-up of reax, including this killer campaign slogan for Newt: “Gingrich 2012: He will always…Continue Reading…
About that futility I was going on about yesterday, Kevin Drum nails it: Are the fever dreams of the right worse than the fever dreams of the left? I’d say they obviously are, but that’s a matter for evidence and argument, not listicles. But nobody on the right is ever going to acknowledge this anyway….Continue Reading…
Steve Walt at Foreign Policy makes his case: One problem, of course, is that causality in a case like this is always murky. When someone arrives at a public event and starts shooting people, how do we determine the relative weight of mental illness, personal experience, opportunity, lax gun-control laws, and the toxic soup of…Continue Reading…
I have a bunch of swirling emotions and conflicting thoughts. But before I get to them, I want to first mention that Tucson, to me, is the beacon of Arizona. As a magazine journalist and editor, I’ve kept a close eye on southern Arizona since 1998, periodically visiting and writing about numerous environmental issues, such…Continue Reading…
That’s what David Rothkopf is bemoaning here in Foreign Policy and it’s what outgoing Republican congressman Bob Ingliss is warning about in his comments yesterday at the House Subcommittee hearing on climate change. Rothkopf, perhaps reminded of this movie (that was awful but also dead-on), offers his own metaphor for the virus overtaking parts of…Continue Reading…
There’s just something weird about this China envy that I keep hearing from liberal pundits and intellectuals. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around yesterday’s op-ed by Thomas Friedman, so I’m going to attempt to unpack it. Bear with me. Let’s start with Friedman’s opener: To visit China today as an American is to…Continue Reading…
Or rather it’s the U.S. political system that worries Foreign Policy’s Steve Walt in this post about America’s rocky future. This is a theme that keeps coming up with pundits, especially those (such as Thomas Friedman and Mathew Yglesias) who are frustrated by the lack of policy action on climate change and other big ticket…Continue Reading…