On Bookstores And Conservative Books
There's been a lot of discussion around the blogosphere about the, um, difficulty some brick-and-mortar bookstores seem to have in ensuring that customers can acquire a copy of Jonah Goldberg's new book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning (Amazon sales rank as of this posting: #6). Prof. Reynolds has posted ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on January 16, 2008 11:56
Republicans Love Barack Obama - For Now
George Will closes a subpar (by his standards, at least) column on the silly populism of Mike Huckabee and John Edwards with this praise for Barack Obama: Barack Obama, who might be mercifully closing the Clinton parenthesis in presidential history, is refreshingly cerebral amid this recrudescence of the paranoid style in American politics. He is the un-Edwards and un-Huckabee -- ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on January 6, 2008 08:11
Romney’s ‘Mormon Speech’
Mitt Romney has now delivered has much anticipated speech defending his Mormon religion. Some key excerpts: When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God. If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on December 6, 2007 14:01
Turning Heroes into Victims and Vice-Versa
The discussion about press corps patriotism -- or, more precisely, the lack of it -- sparked by Jonah Goldberg was somewhat fuzzy, focusing on the meaning of nationalism and the value of symbols. Robert Kaplan takes a sharper cut at it in today's WSJ, focusing not so much on patriotism but heroism. The media struggles in good faith to ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on October 4, 2007 08:57
Press Corps Patriotism
Jonah Goldberg yearns for the golden days of yore, when American journalists wore their patriotism on their sleeve. In a recent speech at the National Press Club, Katie Couric expressed somber disapproval of the jingoistic excesses after 9/11. Among the things that vexed her: "The whole culture of wearing flags on our lapel and saying 'we' when referring to the United ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on October 3, 2007 11:01
Fighting Global Warming With Color
Jonah Goldberg has re-ignited an interesting meme: Replacing black roofs on buildings with white ones and adding chalk dust to asphalt to make our roads light gray rather than black. This, supposedly, will conserve energy, make urban areas cooler, and even help reduce global warming. Blogospheric luminaries from Kevin Drum to Megan McArdle to Matt Yglesias are on ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on June 10, 2007 09:26
Anti-Elite Hackery and the Bush Administration
One of the latest examples adduced of President Bush's tendency to appoint ideologically agreeable hacks rather than traditionally-qualified people to the administration has been the revelation that 150 graduates of Pat Robertson's Regent University are among their ranks, with Monica Goodling the most (in)famous. While Paul Krugman and other reliable anti-Bush pundits have been leading the charge, even Jonah Goldberg ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 16, 2007 14:55
Jonah Goldberg’s Bet
A bet Jonah Goldberg made two years ago is the subject of some amusement on the Left side of the blogosphere. Progressive bloggers pledged about $800 as of [yesterday] morning toward the $1,000 that Jonah Goldberg said -- on Feb. 8, 2005 -- he'd give the USO if the Iraq War was still going badly in 2007. Goldberg, a conservative Tribune Media ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on February 9, 2007 06:16
Israel Planning Nuclear Strike on Iran?
Israel is planning to strike Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with bunker buster nukes, Uzi Mahnaimi and Sarah Baxter report in the Sunday Times of London. They cite "several Israeli military sources" who say two Israeli air force squadrons are currently training for the mission. The specifics of the purported plan: Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open “tunnels” into ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on January 7, 2007 08:19
Taxing the Rich
Ben Stein, he of "Ferris Bueller" and "Win Ben Stein's Money" fame, had a meeting with mega-billionaire Warren Buffett and came away thinking that we should tax rich people more. Mr. Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on November 27, 2006 14:30
