Let’s get this out of the way. It’s not my place to say this, but you know it, I know it, John knows it, and all the circle-jerkers at the Atlantic know this too, despite what they say: there’s no way Ross Douthat would score a New York Times gig if he weren’t a conservative....

Everybody likes to re-fight battles that they’ve already lost. I’ve probably replayed the last two minutes of the 2008 Superbowl in my head a hundred times, usually with Eli Manning getting sacked or Ashante Samuel picking off that pass that was thrown right to him. But no one likes to f...

Much html code has been spilled about the wingnut obsession with “going Galt” in order to avoid paying a 39% marginal rate on income over 250K a year. Matt Yglesias points out that we’d probably be better off if a lot of wealthy Americans went Galt, the Washington Independent has a...

Obviously, it won’t be possible to chronicle all of the fawning media coverage the various finance world moochers and looters received back when they were still viewed as conquering heroes. But this Vanity Fair piece about Walter Noel’s family is probably representative of the worst of i...

I wish I could tell you I was kidding about this one: David Brooks and I were sharing a cab to the British Embassy the other day to meet with Gordon Brown. [....] Let’s face it: The only bracing symbol of American strength right now is the image of Michelle Obama’s sculpted biceps. Her h...

I realize it’s lame to simply quote a larger, move visible blog and say “amen” but you really can’t say this better than TPM is saying it: But aside from the math and economics, there’s a point of media criticism that needs to be made. While the (stimulus) bill was bein...

I’m leaving for London for six days on Monday to visit a friend. I don’t know anything about the city at all except for what I’ve gleaned from a lifetime of listening to Elvis Costello and the Clash. I went once before, but it was for a West Indian wedding, so all I remember is dri...

I’m not normally one to agree with McMeghan or Slate fraudster Henry Blodget and I don’t know enough to say that it’s time to start thinking about firing Tim Geithner. But everything I’ve read from Krugman and Atrios about Geithner’s (lack of a) plan for banks scares th...

Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post today: So Obama hasn’t strayed far from Karl Rove’s playbook for routing the opposition. But surely, you say, he’s planning nothing as divisive or as risky as the Iraq war? Well, that’s where the health-care plan comes in: a $634 billion (...

Fred Hiatt has outdone himself this morning. He’s assembled a panel of “experts” to whine about Obama “bleeding the rich” and the first one to weigh in is Jim Cramer: As someone who can expect a real shock when I get an Obama-shredded paycheck the moment his plus-$250,0...