Happy Birthday to Xavier Nady, 34. Someday, while I'm trying to fall asleep by remembering the roster of the World Series Champion San Francisco Giants, he'll be the one I can't get. That day may be next week. But still...
How about some good stuff:
1. A Monkey Cage post-election report for Puerto Rico, by Juhem Navarro-Rivera.
2. Adam Serwer on Barack Obama's coalition; Kevin Drum on Obama's weak spot.
3. Evaluating the forecasters: Senate races. From Brice Acree.
4. Dan Drezner on the Petraeus scandal and trust in the military. My guess? There's a major priming effect here, so that the way to hurt trust in the military is to get them out of combat. When the American people are evaluating the military on the basis of their competence at fighting, they'll usually get good marks. Take that away, and the military will then be evaluated on other things, where they're less apt to do well.
5. Seth Masket on Republicans and learning.
6. And Alyssa Rosenberg, who apparently is the only one out there who likes "Dick" more than I do, suggests four Washington scandal movies.
on the Seth Masket piece: A few weeks ago you wrote about how the GOP is most likely to stay largely under the control of the conservative wing due to the 2010 elections "rewarding" them. Do you see anything to counter that in the '12 aftermath?
ReplyDeleteNot JB (obviously), but so far, I can't say that I've seen much to counter that. Yes, there are the moderate voices Seth notes and others (what else would Limbaugh be responding to, with his "see, I told you they'd blame me/conservatives!" bit?)
DeleteBut, I really do wonder if we are seeing the conservative information loop at work. Earlier in this cycle, I just thought Romney was playing the game. (see: "etch-a-sketch", his whole life, etc.) However, the 47% comment really stuck with me. That was a big deal on Fox LAST year. To repeat that in 2012 struck me as indicative of a person/campaign that had internalized that message. They drank the Kool-Aid. (Also, I seem to recall that the updated number is actually 46%, with 47% being the number for 2010 taxes). My point is: if Mitt Romney, that creature most interested in which way the winds are blowing, is channelling Fox News for the entire cycle, I'd go with their voice as the prediction of where the party ends up.
(HUGE caveat: I really can't read either the base or the moderates in the GOP very well, I don't think.)
11 years into the GWOT, with all the sturm und drang that elicits, I am simply stunned at the overwhelmingly obtuse response to the Allen/Petraeus scandal. Drezner's not quite as bad, but the widespread consensus is that all you priggish people need to get off your high horses, guys like Petraeus and Allen are only human, they make mistakes...
ReplyDeleteNo no no no no no no! Bubba Clinton was "only human" when he indulged Monica Lewinsky's desire to make use of her Presidential kneepads. Is it too politically incorrect to note the differences between the likes of Jill Kelley/Paula Broadwell and Monica Lewinsky? Speaking in particular of the possible national danger arising from their scheming?
No one cares. Its amazing. John Allen, supreme big guy military commander, sends a scheming Tampa socialite 300 emails with 30,000 pages of documents, and as long as he didn't propose to fuck her in those emails, its just his business?
No wonder people remain so terrified of the Islamic menace. They have utterly no instinct for the kinds of controls necessary to protect against it.
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ReplyDeleteDick is a great, great movie. Especially if you watch it with your teenage daughters.
ReplyDelete