Republicans trying to have it

Republicans trying to have it both ways on race. Joshua Micah Marshall, whose Talking Points Memo is one of the best political blogs around, has a new column in The Hill. His first column takes on Republican tolerance of intolerance:

Critics on the left often wrongly claim that the Republican Party is some hotbed of crypto-racism, when, in fact, most Republicans are nothing of the sort. Many want to build a racially inclusive party. The problem is that too many Republican officeholders still believe it

Vonnegut, a pacifist, despairs

Says Kurt Vonnegut, in this short interview from In These Times: “I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers.”

Deadline today

Blogging will be light…

Blogging as writing practice

Rayne Today: “I never thought of myself as a writer. Now I am, and it’s not a title one has bestowed upon them by others, but one I earn every day through my efforts here.”

Playing catchup

I think I stole at least half of these links from Anil:

• freegorifero: Always-on weblogs
• Plasticbag: How has Blogger changed your life?
• Movable Type: Features planned for version 2.6
• Plasticbag: Countering Joe Clarke’s screed
• Fishbowl: I no longer want to know where my files are stored
• Kottke: RSS readers misusing the refer[r]er field?

RoveWatch: Reich in TAP

Robert Reich dissects Rove’s Machiavellian chops in “The Rove Machine Rolls On” in The American Prospect, detailing his techniques. Among them:

Count on the American public’s (and the media’s) inability to remember anything from one year to the next. The Rove machine gave Bush tough talking points on corporate fraud when the newspapers were full of Enron, Global Crossing, WorldCom and Tyco, and when reporters were asking uncomfortable questions about Bush’s and Cheney’s own corporate dealings. Rove played for time, assuming that warmongering about Iraq (carefully orchestrated to begin just a few months before the midterm elections) would bury the issue. He was right. The administration dragged its feet on reform, and a year out almost nothing has changed. Another example: Rove sold the administration’s $1.35 trillion tax cut in 2001 as a way to spur the ailing economy. Obviously it had no such effect, but Rove assumed no one would remember. Right again. Now the White House is selling the administration’s 2003 tax cut as a way to spur the ailing economy.

Salon bloggin'

Give me The Raven on the State of the Union over The Bleat on the same any day..
A few new Salon blogs have caught my busy eye lately: Fiona, for instance, and Hyperbole. Both are well written and have built up a nice head of steam. Fiona’s also now posting great cartoons (Salon, hire her before the VC money runs out! oops). Hyperbole features medium-length essays. Good food for thought, some politics. You know, a blog.
Oh, and while not a new one, Pesky the Rat is amazing. I don’t know why I hadn’t stumbled over it yet. (Can you say self-absorbed?) I really liked the Nancy Pelosi faces of doom, and the guest editorial defending tax cuts for the superrrich by Janet the Snake, author of Slander: Rodent Lies about Animals that Eat Rodents, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg over there.

A (Maginot) line in the sand

I’m no fan of the Nation Review, but this Jonah Goldberg image cracked me up:

(In case you want to test the query, yes, it’s fake, but it’s still hilarious.)

A (Maginot) line in the sand

I’m no fan of the Nation Review, but this Jonah Goldberg image cracked me up:

(In case you want to test the query, yes, it’s fake, but it’s still hilarious.)

Sit back and enjoy the rest of the flight

Hello, this is your captain speaking.