TweetYou want to see a more extreme version of what I showed you yesterday, this one from the left rather than the right? Check this out, and see if you can tell what makes it a more extreme example of what I’m on about: Brad — Since Trump’s first day in office, his attacks on […]
TweetI’m still a day behind — I watched Episode Seven last night — but I’ll get there eventually. To me, this episode — which dealt with the period of the Tet Offensive — was all about the power of expectations and perception. The offensive was, of course, a tremendous failure for the North Vietnamese and Viet […]
Tweet For some reason, when someone links to my blog, it sometimes shows up as a comment awaiting my approval. I don’t know why. Anyway, that happened today, and it led to a response from me, so I thought I’d share it. I was being quoted in the context of a much longer post. Actually, […]
Tweet The American Party started by Jim Rex and Oscar Lovelace awhile back (not to be confused with the George Wallace version) is probably the closest organized group out there to the UnParty (a.k.a. the Grownup Party), even though I can’t bring myself to buy into some of its precepts. So I’m going to run […]
Tweet I’m really busy today and will be here at work for quite awhile more, but I wanted to give y’all something else to ruminate over (not that I’m saying y’all are actual ruminants or anything): WikiLeaks Files Describe C.I.A. Tools to Break Into Phones — And why are they doing this? Well, because they hate […]
Tweet Editor’s note: I wrote most of this early in the week, and never quite finished or posted it. So it may seem a bit dated, but here you go: I saw the second Sean Spicer skit on SNL over the weekend, and it was funny. But I found myself wondering, OK, I get why […]
Tweet I like putting “Aaron Burr” in headlines. It lets me pretend that I’m living in times in which “the damn’ fool that shot him” was alive and active in our politics. Not that I like Burr much. But it puts me in a time when our presidential choices were between people like Washington, Adams, Jefferson and […]
Tweet The top stories out there at the moment: Recreation Commission director indicted on misconduct in office charge (The State) — Some of you have wondered when, oh when, some of these investigations might bear fruit. Well, here you go. And it really didn’t take all that long. The bigger problem is that in any normally […]
Tweet Let’s set aside for a moment this contest of character and pretend we have the luxury of talking about ideas in this presidential election. Were that the case, the most interesting moment in last night’s debate would have come at this point: RADDATZ: … This question involves WikiLeaks release of purported excerpts of Secretary Clinton’s paid […]
TweetYou know, it would be hard to explain to an intelligent alien why Ted Cruz — who decidedly lost his bid to oppose Hillary Clinton this fall — is sending out email appeals that are essentially aimed at getting voters to join him in … opposing Hillary Clinton. Yeah, we know that politicians are always raising […]
TweetActually, “almost” is a little strong, but the UnParty’s unleadership did think about it a good bit. (You think Ethan Hawke was good as Hamlet? That was nothing compared to this.) I just got off the phone with both Micah Caskey and Tem Miles, who are in a runoff for the GOP nomination for Kenny […]
Tweet Just wanted to bring to your attention a fascinating dark comedy that recently made its appearance on Netflix, in case you haven’t seen it already. In English, it’s called “Look Who’s Back.” But it’s a German film, and the original name is “Er ist wieder da.” It’s based on a satirical novel of the […]
Tweet Jeremy Borden brings to my attention a piece he wrote for a site called The Bitter Southerner. It’s about the role The Whig played in helping get the Confederate flag down. Basically, the role is this: It was a gathering place — and a fertile one, for those wanting a better South Carolina — […]
Tweet Doug should enjoy this. It came along with the following release from U.S. Term Limits: Jack Abramoff Backs Term Limits in New Video The man once known as “America’s most notorious lobbyist” is speaking out in a new video for congressional term limits. Jack Abramoff now says “Congress will never be fixed without term […]
TweetSince this is (yet another) year for people who are mad at government qua government, it’s good to see David Ignatius point out the obvious — or what should be obvious — today: Here’s the puzzle: A country that is angry at “government” or “Washington” will have difficulty fixing problems that result from the breakdown […]
TweetIt’s really gotten ridiculous. This anti-establishment impulse on both the left and the right (to the extent such ephemeral things actually exist) has gotten almost as absurd as it was in the ’60s. (Remember “Never trust anyone over 30?” And if you are old enough to remember it, how childish does it sound to you […]
Tweet You may already have read Andy Shain’s piece on Lindsey Graham’s press availability in Columbia yesterday. It began: U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said Friday that he quit the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination last month because he saw no clear path to the upper tier of candidates, some of whom — Donald […]
TweetAs you probably know, The Washington Post has a fact checker feature which involves regularly checking the veracity of various claims that make news, and awards “Pinocchios” to indicate the relative level of falsehood. The biggest lies get four Pinocchios. The Post has now published a year-end list of “The biggest Pinocchios of 2015,” and […]
Tweet Over the last day or so, we’ve seen a huge rush by Republican politicians — from presidential candidates to state legislators to governors, including our own — to bar Syrian refugees from our shores. President Obama has termed the proposal to let in only Christian Syrian refugees “shameful.” My initial reaction yesterday was to […]
TweetIt occurs to me that I should make myself do more short contact-report-type posts, whenever I run into a newsmaker and pick up a tidbit. So here’s one…. Yesterday, I ran into Commerce Secretary Bobby Hitt (my long-ago managing editor) getting on the elevator heading up to his office. I expressed surprise that he wasn’t […]