It’s exceedingly rare for me to cheer on a Republican senator on one of the Sunday morning talk shows, but Sen. Chuck Hagel’s (R-Neb.) response to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) this morning on Meet the Press was truly entertaining. Tim Russert had just finished asking Lieberman about the inherent difficulties in fighting a war without […]
Radar magazine’s Jebediah Reed noted this week that the New York Times’ David Brooks had a fascinating item not too long ago about the inherent benefits of a meritocracy. It is “a way of life that emphasizes … perpetual improvement, and permanent exertion,” he effused. Brooks went on to describe a meritocracy as being essential […]
I disagree with him on almost every political issue I can think of, but Rep. Walter Jones Jr. (R-N.C.) seems to have learned a great deal over the last few years, particularly when it comes to the war in Iraq. Jones, you may recall, came up with the idea of changing the name of “french […]
Because I recently suggested that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) might be trying to move away from the escalation policy he used to embrace, I thought it only fair to note that we can still call the 20,000 troop increase the McCain Doctrine. Sen. John McCain defended President Bush’s Iraq plan on Friday as a difficult […]
Following up on yesterday’s thoroughly annoying news about Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) allegedly insulting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, I regret to note that the story is now in its second day. In a truly shameless move, the White House has decided to jump on this nonsense, perhaps in the hopes of scoring a few […]
It was a busy week for God-related news, let’s get right to it. First up from the God Machine is a news item from Federal Way, Washington, where a Seattle suburban school board has banned Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” because of complaints from a local religious activist. “Condoms don’t belong in school, and neither […]
You know those meme questionnaires that sometimes make their way around the blogosphere? I rarely partake in them — in large part because I’m rarely tagged. But a relatively new seven-question quiz is making the rounds, and my friend Tim at Balloon Juice has tagged me. And without further ado… 1. Name a book that […]
Guest Post by Morbo Like a lot of state legislatures, Indiana’s House of Representatives opens its sessions with a prayer by a guest religious leader. The problem is, the prayers were almost always Christian and included references to Jesus Christ. This annoyed some people, who got the American Civil Liberties Union to sue. The ACLU […]
Guest Post by Morbo This post doesn’t deal with politics but might strike a chord in those of you of a certain age. This week, Iwao Takamoto, the animator who created Scooby-Doo, died of a heart attack in Los Angeles. He was 81. I watched Scooby-Doo regularly when I was kid, yet I had never […]
Guest Post by Morbo I remember once hearing Dick Armey address an adoring audience of Christian conservatives. He told them how much he loves Jesus and hates legal abortion. His delivery was very unimpressive — he tended to mumble — but the crowd loved him. As he prepared to leave Congress in 2002, the Christian […]