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Monthly Archives: April 2009

Winston was good, but George (Washington, that is) was better

Thursday, April 30, 2009

There’s a bit of speculation going around about just which article Obama recently read about Winston Churchill’s anti-torture policy, with a recent Andrew Sullivan piece being among the top contenders. Apparently, there’s also a little push back, to the effect that the British may not have always stuck to their anti-torture policy. Well, we don’t […]

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Boiling Mad

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

It’s not easy being a member of a minority group. It’s bad enough being marginalized, but it’s even worse to be smeared. Look at this quote from Talking Points Memo: But don’t mistake DeMint for a crank. He’s actually a consummate optimist. He says “Pat Toomey, who is running in Pennsylvania, is one of the […]

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Not to be trusted

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Arlen Specter is becoming a Democrat. Having concluded that he cannot win the Republican primary, he has done the “principled” thing and once again become a Democrat. This is a man who only recently opined that investigating torture is something they do only in banana republics and who, also recently, did a 180 turn on […]

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Myth and Reality

Monday, April 27, 2009

This has been a busy weekend for us, so we just got around to watching Thursday’s Daily Show (I record it every night on my computer). Stewart’s guest was Professor Richard Beeman, who just wrote a book about the Constitutional Convention called Plain, Honest Men. You can watch it below if you like. Stewart marveled […]

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Susan Collins shows what a moderate can do

Monday, April 27, 2009

Sometimes things just don’t break your way. Susan Collins, intellectually challenged Maine “moderate” Senator, must be wanting to share a drink with Bobby Jindal these days. Why it seems like only yesterday (because it was) that her website proudly reprinted an article from the Wall Street Journal, in which she trashed the idea of using […]

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Topsy Turvy

Sunday, April 26, 2009

David Broder has rightly been subjected to more withering blogger scorn than I am capable of expressing, but that doesn’t mean I can’t add my mite. His recent column (Stop Scapegoating) advising against prosecuting torturers has been deconstructed here and here as well as elswhere, but there are many levels of absurdity in the column, […]

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Friday Night Music

Friday, April 24, 2009

Am I repeating myself here? I searched the site, and couldn’t find them. Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker Rick Gretch, and Stevie Winwood. Blind Faith, In the Presence of the Lord. And as a bonus, Clapton and Winwood together more recently (better audio quality for sure) reprising a song from Blind Faith, Can’t Find My Way […]

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Puzzling

Friday, April 24, 2009

Republicans must be immune from cognitive dissonance. There are plenty of examples, but here’s one that truly needs to be more widely known. We are told by Rove and his ilk that Democrats would be criminalizing “policy differences” if they so much as think about investigating the Bush era war criminals. At the same time […]

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Cheney is guilty, guilty, guilty

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The Cheney “defense” to torture is that committing that crime enabled his henchmen to obtain information that “saved lives”. That may be, but probably is not, true. Of course, if we’re going to tote up lives saved, we also have to tote up lives lost to the terrorists our torture tactics created. But today we […]

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Hillary states the obvious

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Hillary Clinton has turned out to be a brilliant pick for Secretary of State. Here she is pointing out the obvious to a Republican spouting a Drudge inspired talking point. We’ve come to a sorry point when the Secretary of State has to defend the president for not acting like a jackass when he meets […]

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