When Mighty Casey struck out, he may have disappointed the fans of Mudville, but he didn’t insult them. He didn’t brand them racists. Or at least Ernest Lawrence Thayer–the poet who immortalized Casey’s big whiff–didn’t mention any such calumnious castigations
The Coffee Party is at it again. Desperately seeking a raison d’etre other than NOT to be the Tea Party, the Brew Crew has just issued a Congressional chain-letter which it hopes its tens of followers will co-sign. Pulling no
After watching the spectacle of blame unfold during the days following the tragic January 8th Tucson shootings, one angry community is no longer biting its tongue. Saying it will no longer be victimized by political opportunists on the left, the
The loud clanging alarm clock went off promptly at 6:00 a.m. as it always did. I hopped off my government-issue twin mattress right away. As an unmarried single dweller, I’m not permitted to own a queen-size mattress, and concealing a
By now you’ve probably seen one of those TV ads where 84-year-old small-screen legend Andy Griffith blatantly shills for ObamaCare. If not, take a look below at the first spot, entitled “1965.” Put your feet up on the antebellum veranda
Jon Stewart’s October 30th bout of rally envy–despite the comedian’s rickety attempts to disavow the patently invidious nature of the convocation–was hubristically (not to mention wishfully) titled “Restoring Sanity.” (Because of its obvious facetiousness, the Colbertian “Restoring Fear” portion of
Jon Stewart’s October 30th bout of rally envy–despite the comedian’s rickety attempts to disavow the patently invidious nature of the convocation–was hubristically (not to mention wishfully) titled “Restoring Sanity.” (Because of its obvious facetiousness, the Colbertian “Restoring Fear” portion of
I don’t regularly watch MSNBC, but curiosity got the better of me tonight. For no special reason, I found myself wondering what THE Place for Politics–I can’t bring myself to use the network’s new slogan–would say about the midterm elections
Tea Pluribus Unum. The brew of individual liberty. What’s good for One is good for the Many. That’s my simple message to Paul Krugman, who, along with Frank Rich, serves as the New York Times’ chief peddler of Tea-ophobia these
Forget Waldo. Where’s Gloria? Gloria Allred–the lawyer who put the “rude” in jurisprudence–is mysteriously missing in action of late. Surfacing recently from beneath her rock in a cellophane effort to shore up Jerry-the-Clown Brown’s gubernatorial aspirations, Allred came riding to
Joe Klein is one angry man. In fact, Joe’s so pissed-off I think he could shoot the next Twelve Angry Men sequel all by himself. Why is poor Joe so unhappy? Because we–well, actually, mostly you conservative women out there–are
Most pundits agree John McCain ran at best a lackluster and at worst a completely feckless 2008 presidential campaign. Yet if the GOP does in fact gain control of one or both chambers of Congress this November, its members should
While browsing the “Antiques” category on eBay today, I came across a most remarkable ad. I had to do a double-take at first but on second glance I saw it really was true. Someone is actually auctioning off Gloria Allred,
The Washington Post‘s E.J. Dionne has just given us a new line of attack on the Tea Party: now the movement is just a giant scam out to hoodwink the American public. Is the tea party one of the most
Remember the Coffee Party? Yeah, me neither. But don’t worry. You haven’t missed your chance to hang with some of the mellowest, most laid-back-est, nicest political activists who ever strummed an E-A-B chord progression on the old six-string or crooned
Et tu, Karl? Only Miles Monroe, Woody Allen’s character in Sleeper, could have missed the firestorm Karl Rove touched off during his appearance on Fox News’ Hannity show on Tuesday night. But for the benefit of Mr. Monroe and other
E.J. Dionne reminds me of all those fin-du-siecle losers back in the late ’70s and early ’80s who still touted the supremacy of their 8-track tapes long after the industry had moved on to the smaller, more convenient cassette. Demodé
In her latest Hail Mary effort to replace the flag of conservative Reason with the flag of liberal Emotion, Maureen Dowd goes talons-out for Newt Gingrich, for “making outrageous, unsubstantiated comments to appeal to the wing nuts among us. ”
If he were alive today, Saul Alinsky would be beaming over President Obama’s Labor Day speech at the Milwaukee Area Labor Council Laborfest. It hit all the right divisive, class-warfare notes, each one sounded to prod the down-trodden Have-nots into
If you’ve never seen the movie The Women, don’t feel bad. You can get a much better lesson in girl-on-girl bitchiness by reading Gail Collins’ much nastier New York Times op-ed “Sarah’s Amazing Race.” With all the outrage over frivolous
Paul “The End Is Near” Krugman thinks conservatives are seeing witches but it’s really the Nobel Laureate who’s fighting his own liberal demons. In his August 29 New York Times op-ed, “It’s Witch-Hunt Season Again,” Krugman showcases both his traditional
According to his August 30 “Obama Needs to Relearn Politicking” column, E.J. Dionne thinks all Obama needs to acquire the legendary cult status of an FDR or a Ronald Reagan is to get in touch with his inner salesman. In
A funny thing happened on the way to ABC’s This Week round table yesterday. The circle turned into a hexagon. Instead of the usual balance of two–occasionally three–commentators from both political perspectives, ABC’s special Independence Day edition featured a 5-on-1
No sign of desperation at CNN these days. Nooooooooo. After all, what TV producer wouldn’t jump at the chance to premiere a new prime-time political show this fall with a disgraced former attorney-general/governor-turned-high-end-john? Yes, that’s right–CNN jumped first. They’ve just
It’s like a doctor who smokes. You’d think the last person to be done in by his own words would be a journalist. Shouldn’t a purveyor of words know better? Yet as today’s forced resignation by WaPo columnist David Weigel
Eugene Robinson, a stage four Obama apologist at the Washington Post, thinks the Republican party is “all shook up” over Joe Barton’s portrayal of the Obama-BP “meeting” as a shakedown. Strange words coming from an MSM Obama shill who himself
It’s hard not to feel sorry for Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift. She’s like the unlucky girl who keeps trying oh-so-hard but never makes the cheerleading squad. In column after column Clift seems to be angling for some future sinecure in the
Wilder Publications, a small publishing company based in Redford Va., is offering on Amazon.com a rather unusual compendium of The Constitution, The Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation. The Wilder edition of our country’s founding documents comes complete
Even most native speakers of English don’t realize how many of our commonest clichés–phrases you hear verbatim in venues as diverse as a gabfest on The View, an Elvis Presley song, or a political debate in Wolf Blitzer’s urgently-named “The
Thursday night at the White House, we Yanks gave Sir Paul McCartney the Gershwin Prize–the equivalent of the Purple Heart for songwriting–and in a brief info-mercial for British deference and class, Sir Paul gave this short, gracious speech in return:
Friday’s May jobs figure is vastly skewed because of the hundreds of thousands of temporary census employees–approximately 411,000–hired to perform the decennial enumeration of the U.S. population and gather concomitant vital information. In the coming days, economists will be assessing
[youtube aUB4XcQYq9A nolink] Joe McGinniss has broken no law by renting the house adjacent to Palin’s. McGinniss is technically within his rights to become Palin’s next-door neighbor. And of course, being technically within one’s rights is a perfectly valid justification
As the nearly two-year-old Palin piñata-fest demonstrates, for the devout liberal the intersection of Sorority Street and Politics Avenue is left-turn only. To no one’s surprise, Sarah Palin remains the left’s First Lady of political feminae non gratae, the gold
After more than 20 agonizing months in exile at an undisclosed location, Mayor Ed Koch’s runaway mind made a daring escape from its captor, Obama-mania, this week and has at last come home safe and sound. At 85, the former
Things were going so well for David Shuster at the start of the year. On January 26, James O’Keefe, chief ACORN-buster, and several of his friends had just been arrested for “breaking into” the office of Senator Mary Landrieu. The
Sometimes you just can’t believe your eyes. Read this sentence from today’s Politics Nation (“Blumenthal Camp: Vietnam Issue Behind Us“) and then ask yourself if you or the ” Democratic strategist” is the crazy one: “This [how Richard Blumenthal handled
A drowning man will cling to any spar. A drowning Democrat to any Critz. There’s nothing wrong with clinging to spars when you’re shipwrecked in mid-ocean. It beats the alternative. But one should never mistake spars for lifeboats. As Eleanor
Tea Party Patriots, rejoice! With enemies like Michael Kinsley, who needs friends? Read between the sneering lines of Kinsley’s May 18th column in The Atlantic and you may just find an unintended love-letter to the very Tea Party Patriots he
Why does talent get a pass? And to what extent does the “morality paradox” color our view of great artists? Roman Polanski’s best films, like all great films, are very moral–in particular Chinatown and The Pianist. They deal with socially
A gray beard and a 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics go a long way to establishing a fellow’s credibility in discussing the current situation in Greece and how it relates to the U.S. economy. In his May 13 New York