dev

6
Sep

Palin, earmark queen

Timothy Noah explains: “[Alaska] is a state that preaches right-wing libertarianism while it practices middle-class socialism.” “A pit bull with lipstick? I’d describe Palin as a hog who recommends diet books while feeding at the trough.”

6
Sep

“Obama and the suicidal left”

William Jelani Cobb asks: “Why it is that a group of progressives would spend about 40 minutes discussing how to critique Barack and virtually no time discussing how to elect him?” Perhaps the most biting irony is a kind of reverse affirmative action, where Obama seems to face a higher bar for support than the white candidates who preceded him.

Read more

5
Sep

Quagmire reality check II

You’ve got to hand it to Sarah Palin: she’s got the brass balls to try to put the Iraq war in the plus column for McCain and the Republicans, trashing Obama on the campaign trail on the issue of the troop surge. As I argued here, the Iraq war did not begin in early 2007, it began in early 2003,

Read more

5
Sep

Moment of Zen

4
Sep

The contrast is clear

In his nomination speech last week, Barack Obama concluded with remarks about rebuilding a sense of “common purpose” in America. You could brush this off as mushy noble talk, but in fact it’s one of the key strengths of the Obama campaign — the drive to frame old problems in new ways and move this country out of the tired

Read more

4
Sep

Barack swings

3
Sep

Eye-raq, Eye-ran

Sarah Palin cannot pronounce the names of the countries she wants to fight. She uses the term “death tax” and claims to represent small-town America. She warns that al-Qaeda continues to threaten and that Obama is “worried someone won’t read them their rights” — an astonishing thing to say after this administration has rendered, tortured and killed prisoners it has

Read more

3
Sep

Sarah Palin, extremist

It can’t go unremarked at Lerterland that vice presidential candidate — that is, potential President of the United States — Sarah Palin has her own preacher problem in Ed Kalnins, who has claimed that criticism of the president can get you sent to hell. (Let’s check in with him after Obama wins.) Palin herself believes that the war effort in

Read more