Happy Birthday -- and there are lots of great options today -- to Carole King, b. 1942. Carole King is 70! Another songwriter and performer, by the way, who has been oddly overlooked by the Kennedy Center Honors.
Ready for the good stuff?
1. Seth Masket looks at how Santorum did it.
2. Award-winning blogger John Sides talks about political science, reporters, and 2012.
3. I think DiA's M.S. is exactly right about Obama, foreign policy, and that UN Security Council vote.
4. Sarah Kliff on the White House case for why the birth control battle plays well for the president.
5. And: so many wars. So many, many, many wars. Nice collection by Dave Gilson.
I appreciate the other side of the Party Actors this year...it isn't working out too well for the model.
ReplyDeleteOf course, you could say the Party Actors already narrowed the field before the primary season, but it does look as if the Republican party is out of control.
And the Primary process has brought very flawed candidates out since 92; Dole (boring), Gore (boring), Bush (oh god), Kerry (suck it up) and McCain (whatever). I'd throw Obama into that mix too; we're all paying for his on the job learning. Clinton was flawed of course, but a good politican. I don't think Bush was -- if it wasn't for one day, he would have been a one term president.
FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy/Johnson -- the 5 good presidents? Does that make Nixon into Commodus?
What's the provenance of "read stuff you should"? It sounds like a variant on some cartoon character's dictum, or someone in a Ring Lardner tale or some such, or "I'm a good girl, I am". Or is it some big latinish inversion of "you should read stuff"?
ReplyDeleteNothing in particular that I know of, although it is possible that I was watching a lot of "Clone Wars" at the time.
DeleteBear in mind there's no reason to think of the Kennedy Center Honors as anything other than what they are, an artifice created by television by an arts institution that nobody in the fine arts community actually thinks is important.
ReplyDeleteCarole King's in the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. And her songs have sold millions of records. And she has Grammy Awards. And critical praise. That's all she needs.