Scott Johnson notes Walter Pincus' whitewashing of the Chas Freeman withdrawal brouhaha: One would never know from the article that Freeman ascribed his withdrawal to "unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country," to "a special interest g...

Grim writes: It is a strange thing to come back from that world to this one. They would be hard-pressed to be less similar. The world in Iraq is a world of work: from the time you wake until the time you lie down is uninterrupted labor. Thirteen hour days are normal, fifteen not unusual, longer yet ...

Today the Court strikes down as inadequate the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants. The political branches crafted these procedures amidst an ongoing military conflict, after much careful investigation and thorough debate. The...

But Rush is not a popular guy. He just isn't. The evidence isn't the slightest bit ambiguous on this point. Janny Mae comments: [The media] do not "know" that Rush is widely disliked. They BELIEVE that, because they believe their own propaganda. No, they believe that based on long-standing empirical...

You know, I'm sick to death of the silly bickering over a radio talk show host's choice of words. How many days now has the right wasted arguing over whether Rush ought to be more careful in his choice of words or not? This whole debate seems to have devolved into a cage match between two positions ...

Via Metafilter, someone with way too much time on their hands compiled a few amusing lists from Facebook entries. First, he correlated average SAT score with the favorite book listed on Facebook pages. Pretty funny. Atlas Shrugged rates near the top (average SAT score: 1228). My favorite novel isn't...

Not that this is anything new for Matt Yglesias, but this latest post takes his habitual illogic to new heights: ... there’s the obscene implication that if people are poor, it’s because they don’t work hard and certainly not as hard as those long-toiling business executive. As I wrote back in...

My Dad and I are huge fans of Robert Samuelson. Dad has been reading him longer than I have. He writes: Robert Samuelson has never before in my memory taken to criticism of a President . He has always been very even in his criticism of the government, sticking to issues that affect the economy. Now ...

Now where have we heard that before? Oh yeah: In a reminder of Rush Limbaugh's famous rejoinder that words have meaning... The question is, what did Rush mean to say? Turns out, even those who defend his absolute right to make sensational and ambiguous statements aren't quite sure. ...he phrased his...

Never read Dan Riehl while drinking coffee: As for Republicans, they are so damned dumb and undisciplined when it comes to messaging, one or more of them always falls into the trap and gets their fifteen minutes of fame and shame looking like the idiots they are. If they had the intelligence and dis...