Holder and the Rich Pardon

Richard Cohen and Ezra Klein are very disturbed by Attorney General-designate Eric Holder's role in Bill Clinton's 11th hour pardoning of Marc Rich.  Kevin Drum finds Holder's role "disturbing" but not disqualifying and hopes he's learned his lesson. I'm by no means a Clinton fan but the idea that Holder should be held accountable for Clinton's corrupt use of his plenary ...

Conservative Policy Solutions

Kevin Drum seconds my concerns about conservative public intellectuals and offers two example where the Right isn't offering useful policy alternatives. Conservatives on Global Warming Take global warming. Here's the rough conservative reaction to it starting in the early 90s: It doesn't exist. It exists but it isn't manmade. It's manmade, but it's too expensive to do anything about. Even this is a generous assessment. ...

Right Needs New Public Intellectuals

In Saturday's post "Talk Radio Killed Conservativism?" I observed parenthetically that "most of the best analytical blogs are on the center-left" and promised to elaborate. It's something that has struck me for quite some time (see, for example, February's "Rational Conservative Blogs") and that was brought to mind again with two links at Matt Yglesias' place Thursday. BRIGHT YOUNG BLOGGERS First, an ...

Franken to Win Recount by 27 Votes

Nate Silver uses a combination of regression analysis and wild ass guesses drawn from limited information on challenged ballots to project that Al Franken will come out ahead by a mere 27 votes.  Kevin Drum, for one, is convinced. While I'm less enthralled by Silver's savant status than most (many came closer to the results by informed guessing) I agree that ...

Republican Party’s Future

My Palin Derangement Syndrome post got a number of thoughtful responses, especially for a weekend post. My fellow Jacksonville State alumnus Stacy McCain, a Palin fan, thinks the internal debate on her role in last week's defeat and her future as a Republican Party standard bearer is one we should have.  He objects strenuously, though, to the tone of some of ...

Diplomacy Without Precondition

In my latest for New Atlanticist, "Preconditions, Preparations, and Posturing," I argue that Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum, and perhaps even Nicholas Burns are misreading the now 16-month-old debate over Barack Obama's pledge to meet "without precondition, during the first year of [his] administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea."

Sarah Palin’s Expensive Clothes

[caption id="attachment_26462" align="alignright" width="297" caption="Sarah Palin, in a red leather jacket, waves as she steps on stage before a crowd at a baseball field in Grand Junction, Colo., on Monday."][/caption] We've had John Edwards' haircuts, John McCain's shoes, Michelle Obama's snacks (a story that turned out to be untrue), and now, Sarah Palin's wardrobe. The Republican National Committee has spent more than ...

Has Palin Out-Qualyed Quayle?

Dan Qualye was, rather unfairly in my view, a national joke.  From very shortly after George H.W. Bush picked a rising star senator from Indiana that few outside his home state had ever heard of to be his vice presidential running mate in 1988, Quayle became the butt of late night comics, "Saturday Night Live," and other culture-setting institutions and ...

The Bush Boom

Kevin Drum reports that, Bush expansion is over, and Brad DeLong describes it as "the first business cycle during which median household income in America falls from peak to peak." And indeed it is. The closest we've come to such a dismal recovery in the postwar era was the dreaded stagflation-driven economic expansion of Jimmy Carter's presidency. DeLong provides a ...

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones

Kevin Drum has opened the door at his new digs at Mother Jones, where they've cleverly named his blog Kevin Drum. Update your bookmarks, feeds, and whatnot accordingly. He's been at it six years now, as of Saturday, and I've been reading him for all but five months of that tenure. We disagree on much but there's not a ...