Happy Birthday to Bradley Whitford, 54. Wesleyan Class of '81.
Can't forget the good stuff:
1. Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal on gerrymandering.
2. Andrew Rudalevige on beating the debt limit.
3. The latest on teaching creation myths, from Sarah Posner.
4. Greg Koger on the conservative record on deficits. But tell us something we don't know (which I mean literally: I'd be very interested in seeing this evidence for the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s).
5. And Zach Beauchamp on race, Republicans, and shutdown.
You might be interested in this little story, in which our old friend Chuck Colson plays an important supporting role:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newsfromme.com/2013/10/10/jay-robinson-r-p/
Thanks; that's an awesome story. Colson, the Bay City Rollers, Banacek -- that's my kind of story (and he was also in a Star Trek -- and the Cheers where they insulted the Bernsteins' rec room).
ReplyDeleteJB, re: McCarty et al., what do you think of the hypothesis that polarization is rooted, at least in part, in the primary system? When politicians pick the party nominees, politicians become candidates. When primary voters pick nominees, anti-politicians stand a better chance.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could see how Josh Lyman's would respond to the current legislative mess (especially the snappy quips)!
ReplyDeleteI always preferred Toby Ziegler's rants.
DeleteThe Wrath of the Whatever from High Atop the Thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4rigI3FkwE
Toby definitely was the stronger ranter, but it's not his birthday.
DeleteI'm currently reading "American Slavery" by Peter Kochin and, from what he writes about the antebellum south in the last decade before the Civil War, it is apparent to me that Zach Beauchamp could start is story a little sooner than the New Deal.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing to me how little has really changed over the years. Just the players are different.
Funny, I had only read 3/4 of the way through Zach's piece when I wrote the above comment as I was running out the door. Having read the last 1/4, I now know he already connected those dots.
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