tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79839192011-08-16T03:46:33.843-04:00NewDonkey.com, the sharp edge of the vital center, provides political commentary from the New Democrat movement.Jamesnoreply@blogger.comBlogger9181100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-31387999445743246062007-06-10T20:18:00.000-04:002007-06-10T21:15:47.759-04:00

After about 33 months and (as of today) 932 posts at NewDonkey.com, I'm finally ready to do what so many other bloggers have done, and move from a solo gig to something a bit more integrated into a strategic political mission.As of June 18, I'll be blogging regularly at The Democratic Strategist, an online magazine that's about a year old. In case you're not familiar with TDS, its editors are the

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1880606010083528662007-06-07T13:36:00.000-04:002007-06-07T15:08:44.058-04:00

Yesterday brought a batch of news from the presidential campaigns in Iowa, where believe it or not, the first stage of the nominating contest will commence in about six months (and that's if Iowa doesn't move back a week in a shuffle caused by Florida's legislation moving its primary back to January 29, or even further if New Hampshire decides to deal with all its competitors by moving back into

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-44732837334464893162007-06-05T23:43:00.000-04:002007-06-05T23:55:27.419-04:00

I didn't watch the NH Republican debate on CNN, but figure that the most important reactions are among the conservative commentariat. At National Review's The Corner, which basically liveblogged the debate, Rudy Guiliani was the clear winner. At Redstate.org, Mike Huckabee was the winner on the stage, and Fred Thompson was perhaps the big winner. Republicans remain way divided at this point.

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-44272859837520959912007-06-04T23:09:00.000-04:002007-06-05T00:48:17.595-04:00

The big what-if in the news today was in sports, when Florida basketball coach Billy Donovan scuttled back to Gainesville four days after penning a big-bux contract to go to the NBA's Orlando Magic. This was a what-if not only for the Magic, but for the daisy-chain of hirings and openings that might have emerged in the college coaching ranks if Donovan had stuck with his decision to book.The best

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-36244585954060710532007-06-01T18:39:00.000-04:002007-06-01T19:19:57.575-04:00

There's been quite a buzz in the blogosphere and elsewhere recently about the likelihood that the Bush administration's ultimate fallback goal in Iraq is to establish permanent U.S. military bases, as a sort of shriveled imperial booby-prize for our disastrous policies towards that country. Sam Rosenfeld at TAPPED has a good summary of the latest talk. You'd think that maybe this was an issue

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-51449125703346328982007-05-31T10:30:00.000-04:002007-05-31T11:17:24.144-04:00

As you probably know if you've been following the presidential campaign news, Barack Obama released his long-awaited health care reform proposal earlier this week, and it's getting decidedly mixed reviews from the chattering classes. Two progressive blogger/journalists with pretty good street cred on health care issues, Ezra Klein and Jon Cohn, have published quite similar takes, praising many

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-21785872454331672372007-05-30T17:45:00.000-04:002007-05-30T17:54:49.443-04:00

It's rare these days to find a blog post by someone calling him or herself a New Democrat, and rarer still when that someone is a member of the post-Clinton generation of political activists and analysts. So I have more than a passing interest in the Table For One guest blogs being posted by Scott Winship (former managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, and now with Third Way) over at

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-57398265542137941462007-05-30T14:20:00.000-04:002007-05-30T15:11:40.539-04:00

Over at MyDD, Chris Bowers has an important post about one of the most fundamental but insufficiently discussed lessons of the 2006 elections: the collapse of the supposedly invincible Right Wing Machine.One of the nice side effects from our great electoral success in 2006 is that the tide of books, speeches, and studies by progressives with conservative movement envy has been significantly

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-48735619126907930332007-05-28T19:29:00.000-04:002007-05-28T19:55:10.969-04:00

I'm just old enough to actually remember a time when large elements of the American male population had died or risked death in uniform, and just young enough to have legally avoided military service myself. I was lucky, while many of my Vietnam-era peers weren't, and part of the emotion properly felt on Memorial Day has to do with the recognition of young men and women who wound up in the wrong

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-33188192816599582222007-05-23T14:51:00.000-04:002007-05-23T17:19:14.298-04:00

Yesterday Chris Bowers of MyDD did a long, interesting post about the Third Way organization, and wondered aloud why he should treat as comrades-in-arms people whose name, he suspects, represents a commitment to extinguish his and his friends' influence over Democratic politics.Here's the key section:To be perfectly blunt, why would I want to speak to a group that seems to have been created for

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-6900216300182274512007-05-22T23:18:00.000-04:002007-05-23T02:17:00.394-04:00

In a bit of a surprise, former Lt. Gov. Steve Beshear won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Kentucky today, winning just over the 40% of the vote necessary to avoid a runoff. He enters the general election contest as a heavy favorite over scandal-plagued Republican incumbent Ernie Fletcher, who easily beat former U.S. Rep. Anne Northrup for the GOP nomination.Until very recently,

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-27634375710729715362007-05-21T23:45:00.000-04:002007-05-22T00:48:37.238-04:00

The new immigration deal, which has barely been revealed in its details, survived a simple vote to proceed in the Senate, but amidst signs that it will be buffeted from almost every direction.39 Democrats and 30 Republicans voted for cloture on the motion to proceed on the deal; 5 Democrats and 18 Republicans voted against it. But all over the chamber, senators who voted both yea and nay vowed to

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-21745808583802809482007-05-20T17:03:00.000-04:002007-05-20T17:12:44.456-04:00

A couple of days ago, I did an unhappy post lengthily taking issue with something Ezra Klein had to say at TAPPED about polls and Democratic "centrists," and wanted to report that Ezra subsequently apologized for the whole thing, in terms that went far beyond anything necessary to satisfy me or anyone else. I hope that next time I say something that might unintentionally cause offense, I have

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-19652483863058382692007-05-20T15:27:00.000-04:002007-05-20T15:33:16.136-04:00

As a useful summary over at RealClearPolitics shows, initial response to last week's immigration deal in the nation's editorial pages has been relatively positive. But today, the New York Times came out with guns blazing and urged that the deal be rejected if it's not significantly improved, with the vast "guest-worker" program contemplated in the proposal being the major flashpoint. Given the

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-73816579866434099002007-05-20T13:45:00.000-04:002007-05-20T15:10:06.039-04:00

It's increasingly obvious that Mitt Romney's "second interview" to become the Conservative Alternative to McCain and Giuliani in the GOP presidential contest is working out a lot better than his first. Having jumped into a lead or strong second place in several recent polls in NH, the Mittster is now moving up fast in Iowa as well. Via TPMCafe's Election Central, we learn that Romney's opened up

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-23702910792416395052007-05-19T19:27:00.000-04:002007-05-19T20:05:54.448-04:00

The immigration deal cut last week by the White House and key Senate leaders will probably have the votes to get through the Senate, unless there's a full-scale Democratic revolt against the size of the obnoxious "guest worker" program. But I tell you what is absolutely clear: this deal is rapidly becoming a toxic, divisive problem for Republicans, potentially as large as divisions over the Iraq

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-18542891044028439652007-05-18T18:09:00.000-04:002007-05-19T20:08:55.983-04:00

In case anybody is under the misapprehension that my last post reflected disrespect towards Ezra Klein (which wasn't my intention, though I do think he showed some disrepect to "centrists" in the subject of my unhappy response), let me say his three (so far) TAPPED posts on the immigration "deal" are the best immediate reactions I've seen: a good analysis of the pros and cons of the deal itself,

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-82772342033584392022007-05-18T12:01:00.000-04:002007-05-18T13:09:10.026-04:00

In his contribution to the TAPPED/Third Way colloquoy on the 2006 elections (see my last post), Ezra Klein goes off into a digression about the alleged "obsession" of centrist groups with polling, adding this unhelpful "hunch" about its origins:My hunch is that both liberals and conservative intuitively understand that their philosophies have a certain instinctual resonance with the broader

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-50277195388210084232007-05-18T10:14:00.000-04:002007-05-18T12:01:13.418-04:00

An extended and rather heated exchange has broken out over at TAPPED regarding Third Way's recent analysis of electoral trends between 2004 and 2006, which, to make a long story short, suggests that Democrats main vote gains last year were in "red" elements of the electorate, especially white men and high earners. The report drew criticism from Tom Schaller, Mark Schmitt and Ezra Klein. Then

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-70310374899194579142007-05-17T17:42:00.000-04:002007-05-17T18:23:54.243-04:00

The big news in Washington today is that the White House and Senate leaders have agreed on another version of immigration reform legislation that would supersede the stalled Kennedy-McCain bill, and maybe stand an outside chance of enactment in the House. I'm not inclined to immediately follow Nathan Newman in labeling this a "crappy deal." But there are clearly some problems with it. Personally

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-86084629784334106982007-05-17T17:14:00.000-04:002007-05-17T17:41:51.570-04:00

I did a post over at TPMCafe about the death of Jerry Falwell, mainly dealing with my own perceptions of his less-than-titantic domination of his home town of Lynchburg, Virginia. More generally, it's pretty clear that Falwell's national role as anything other than a symbol of, and as an occasional embarassment to, the Christian Right ended a long time ago. Still, he was indeed a pioneer in the

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-48205635127565394672007-05-14T15:08:00.000-04:002007-05-14T16:21:59.653-04:00

Over at The American Prospect, Tom Schaller goes through the various reasons that conservatives are unhappy with the Big Three Republican front-runners for the 2008 presidential nomination--Giuliani, McCain and Romney--and comes up with an interesting suggestion: GOPers could decide it's more important to make a "statement" of conservative principle than to win, and may prove it by uniting behind

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-25581288381301623312007-05-13T17:54:00.000-04:002007-05-13T21:40:15.308-04:00

Washington Post reporter and columnist David Broder has been frequently barbecued in the progressive blogosphere in recent years for epitomizing the Beltway Establishment mindset, and particularly its reflexive support for bipartisanship in an era of Republican-driven polarization. But he's also long harbored a quirk that is decidedly and unfortunately unusual among bigfoot journalists: an

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-42605748449944817322007-05-12T15:25:00.000-04:002007-05-12T16:37:16.807-04:00

One of the perennial issues kicked up in the discussion of Jon Chait's TNR cover article on the netroots was the abusive language frequently encountered in blogs and particularly in comment threads. To summarize a whole lot of posts by a whole lot of people, the theory among some is that MSM types are hostile to the blogosphere because they aren't used to getting criticized up there in their

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-40126007433405139662007-05-11T16:18:00.000-04:002007-05-11T19:41:56.287-04:00

Via Christopher Orr at The Plank, it was interesting to discover that not all the conservative evangelical Christians who hate Mitt Romney's religion are keeping those views to themselves. Florida televangelist Bill Keller, in an email reportedly sent out to a 2.4 million-member subscription list, made this measured comment, among others, about the consequences of voting for the Mittster:"Those

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-62483447099075382902007-05-11T12:47:00.000-04:002007-05-11T13:45:13.300-04:00

So: after his disastrous debate performance on the question of abortion, Republican presidential front-runner Rudy Giuliani has apparently decided to recalibrate his position, and will be a sorta-loud, sorta-proud proponent of abortion rights. At the same time, his aides suggest, he may downplay the early-states gauntlet of Iowa, NH, and SC, and stake his candidacy on a smashing win in Florida on

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-40476353626050477422007-05-10T23:56:00.000-04:002007-05-11T00:12:00.505-04:00

Anyone interested in the intra-progressive debate on trade policy should check out Jamie Galbraith's new piece at the American Prospect site, which takes apart much of the neo-populist argument for trade restrictions or strict bilateral labor and environment conditions on trade agreements as a panacea for the downside of globalization. To make a long story short, Galbraith thinks that it's

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-52645480531963411382007-05-09T14:40:00.000-04:002007-05-09T14:50:47.660-04:00

Even as House Democrats prepared to offer George W. Bush the face-saving gesture of a short-term supplemental appropriations bill for Iraq that doesn't impose a deadline and simply requires a report back to Congress on the progress made by the Iraqi government towards a security takeover and a political settlement, the White House is already threatening a veto.And at the bottom of the Post

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-72137852301151600092007-05-06T16:34:00.000-04:002007-05-06T19:38:26.095-04:00

Well, I suffered through the first Republican presidential debate last Thursday night, and thought it was revealing if not dispositive. The staging of the event at the Reagan Library made the predictable pandering to the Gipper's heritage seem more natural than it actually should have been, nearly twenty years after the man left office. And though I have never been a Chris Matthews fan, I think

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-43824318567423764032007-05-02T12:30:00.000-04:002007-05-02T15:15:20.275-04:00

The LA Times' Jonathan Chait has a big cover article in the current New Republic analyzing the netroots as a political phenomenon. I did a post on it over at TPMCafe, and won't go through the whole thing here, other than to say that Chait's piece, despite a few questionable assertions, is a very good introduction to the whole topic of the netroots' role in Democratic politics. That it appeared in

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1978434527477536312007-05-02T12:18:00.000-04:002007-05-02T12:26:44.948-04:00

So you're Mitt Romney, and you want to be President of the United States, but you've got this problem: a significant number of Americans think your religion is a weird cult that used to sanction polygamy. A reporter asks you one of those dumb but utterly predictable questions candidates get asked: What's your favorite book? You suppress the impulse to say "The Book of Mormon," but instead tout

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-50124304466413459222007-04-30T23:50:00.000-04:002007-05-01T02:07:43.962-04:00

Over at The Democratic Strategist, Will Marshall and Ed Gresser of the Progressive Policy Institute have published a provocative take on the taxonomy of progressive attitudes towards globalization. Two of their categories are well-known: the "neo-populists" who largely view globalization in its current form as a malevolent, corporate-driven phenomenon that must be resisted if not somehow

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-38112802686727473882007-04-30T15:00:00.000-04:002007-04-30T23:02:18.329-04:00

It took a few days, but now there are signs that Gov. Bill Richardson's hard-won status as a preferred or back-up presidential candidate for leading elements of the left blogosphere and/or netroots has been seriously endangered by his performance in last week's SC debates.Before wading into this subject, let me emphasize that I like Richardson, and that I have been and intend to remain studiously

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-82881493874972116692007-04-26T22:14:00.000-04:002007-04-27T16:07:01.492-04:00

Don't know if you watched the Democratic presidential debate from South Carolina, but I did, and I'll get kicked out of the blogger union if I don't pass on some impressions.The format was unusual, with lots of questions demanding (unsuccessfully) short answers, with lots of jumping around on topics, and virtually no candidate interaction, other than that randomly forced by the questions. The two

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-42307873634965305072007-04-25T16:37:00.000-04:002007-04-25T21:37:43.839-04:00

This last weekend I finally got around to reading Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Imperial Life In the Emerald City, a remarkable eyewitness account by a Washington Post reporter of the disastrous history of the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ruled Iraq from shortly after the U.S. invasion until the establishment of an interim Iraqi government in June of 2004.The book (published last fall) is a

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-49427178745413734762007-04-25T14:36:00.000-04:002007-04-25T15:36:29.190-04:00

This week's frantic administration pushback against congressional efforts to rein in Bush on Iraq has certainly had its weird features.For one thing, whose brilliant idea was it to once again deploy Dick Cheney to make the case for the administration? Harry Reid nicely captured the question with this obsevation after Cheney went after him very personally: “I’m not going to get into a name-calling

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-49168575412187400532007-04-19T17:00:00.000-04:002007-04-19T19:17:17.901-04:00

After reading yesterday's 5-4 Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of Congress' so-called "partial-birth abortion" ban, I did a post over at TPMCafe suggesting, among other things, that the majority's excrutiating effort to reconcile the decision with SCOTUS precendents on abortion might slow down the inevitable conservative drive to overturn those precedents and eliminate any

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-48367771177935033562007-04-17T22:12:00.000-04:002007-04-17T22:30:17.899-04:00

Were you exposed to any of the annual Tax Day shriekathon by conservatives about the horrendous tax burden of wealthy Americans? Jared Bernstein has a post up at TPMCafe that nicely simplifies the games played by those who try to make this case:[I]f you want to make our tax system sound unfair, you do two things. First, you talk only about income taxes, ignoring payroll and other sources, and

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-63725311632298439742007-04-17T14:09:00.000-04:002007-04-17T17:22:14.907-04:00

Some of you may have been offended or amused by GOP presidential candidate Tommy Thompson's gaffe before a Jewish audience the other day, wherein he allowed as how:"I'm in the private sector and for the first time in my life I'm earning money. You know that's sort of part of the Jewish tradition."Thompson's hilariously counterproductive efforts to dig himself out of his use of Jewish stereotypes

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-55872437237516440002007-04-17T13:52:00.000-04:002007-04-17T13:52:02.426-04:00

I wound up watching hours of the television coverage of the Blacksburg massacre yesterday, probably because I know a whole lot more about Virginia Tech than about the sites of similiar tragedies in the past. And two aspects of the "story" jumped out, particularly during and immediately after the university's evening press conference.First was the firm stonewalling by university spokesmen on the

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-33185108331201442652007-04-13T15:19:00.000-04:002007-04-13T16:00:36.939-04:00

I'm doing this post because my old friend Armando at TalkLeft has cited me twice in the past week for opposing partisanship, "contrast," and "fighting" as elements of a Democratic political strategy, once quoting, slightly (but not unfairly) out of context, something I said back in 2005.His latest post selectively quotes from an analysis I did the other day of the Democratic presidential field,

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-14901223265436553092007-04-13T14:34:00.000-04:002007-04-13T15:06:53.742-04:00

As a follow-up to my recent post on the Democratic presidential race, I would say there really isn't any dominant conventional wisdom about the Republican contest at this point.Some observers think the field is a big mess, with the Big Three candidates (Giuliani, McCain and Romney) all sporting gigantic liabilities that could theoretically take them down before Iowa, but with no one else emerging

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-79325262347810175322007-04-12T13:22:00.000-04:002007-04-12T13:53:02.367-04:00

The novelist Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at 84. Like a lot of baby boomers, no doubt, the news made me feel sad and very old, and perhaps wondering what Vonnegut had been up to during the decades after we all read his early stuff like Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat's Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions. I'm sure a lot of people who grew up in the 60s and 70s remember Vonnegut as part of a group of

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-75251700939550604352007-04-11T15:48:00.000-04:002007-04-11T17:26:16.139-04:00

It's become a commonplace observation to note that the 2008 presidential race, particularly on the Democratic side, is already achieving an unusually frantic pace. And perhaps the best evidence of that hypothesis is the fact that each of the Big Three Democratic candidates, Clinton, Obama and Edwards, has already been described, by the Conventional Wisdom of the Washington chattering classes and

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-17433349701069550282007-04-10T14:31:00.000-04:002007-04-10T14:59:30.910-04:00

Maybe some people think that mocking Tom DeLay is a matter of shooting fish in a barrel, but insofar as The Hammer has fantasies of becoming the Big Fish of the right-wing blogosphere, it's worth the effort to fire a few rounds when he lifts his gills from the water.Via Jonathan Schwartz, we have this snippet transcribed from a recent DeLay radio interview, wherein he compares himself to

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-11878813916595928852007-04-04T23:43:00.000-04:002007-04-05T00:11:52.539-04:00

The much-commented-upon willingness of conservatives to overlook Rudy Giuliani's heretical views on social issues is about to get the acid test. In an interview today with CNN's Dana Bash, Rudy reiterated his past support for using public funds to pay for abortions in every case where abortion itself is legal. He also, incidentally, reiterated his support for a constitutional right to choose as

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-52736779768762570132007-04-02T21:44:00.000-04:002007-04-02T22:27:55.533-04:00

For decades now, columnist Robert Novak has served as the unofficial but very real loudspeaker in national politics for the serious conservative activists of both the economic and cultural variety. Throughout the Reagan and G.H.W. Bush years, Novak was the guy who could be counted on to express the unhappiness of the Right with any deviation from its agenda by Repubican leaders. And most famously

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-51809307358100276642007-04-02T21:19:00.000-04:002007-04-02T21:41:14.394-04:00

The first quarter fundraising numbers for the Republican presidential candidates are trickling out now, and their Big Three money men have demolished all past records as well. It was certainly being rumored that the Mittster would have a great quarter to offset his recently dismal poll ratings, but his $23 million haul was pretty amazing. Giuliani reported $15 million, and John McCain came in

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-34473210251245659042007-04-02T12:46:00.000-04:002007-04-02T19:44:23.511-04:00

Last Thursday, in the wake of Harold Ford's kickoff speech as chairman of the DLC, the Washington Times published a toxic little article entitled "Ford Splits With Democrats On Iraq," by Brian DeBose. It somehow interpreted a comment by Ford warning against too precipitious a withdrawal from Iraq as meaning he opposed the withdrawal language in the supplemental appropriations bills passed by both

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-9595429441230074922007-04-01T23:34:00.000-04:002007-04-02T00:54:37.295-04:00

We won't get the official numbers for a few days, but on the Democratic side at least, presidential campaigns are beginning to informally release their first quarter fundraising totals, and as expected, the amounts are staggering.According to Jerome Armstrong at MyDD, Clinton will lead the pack with $26 million in the quarter, followed by $21-22 million by Obama, $14 million by Edwards, $6

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-71400092449374431032007-03-27T08:30:00.000-04:002007-03-27T09:17:58.456-04:00

Today's news brings a true blast from the past: Ronald Reagan's legendary budget director and former Congressman, David Stockman, has been indicted on charges of conspiracy, securities fraud and obstruction of justice in connection with his operation of an auto parts firm that went bankrupt in 2005. He faces up to thirty years in the hoosegow, along with fines that could reach over a billion

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-14929173443091268092007-03-26T17:19:00.000-04:002007-03-26T21:22:10.000-04:00

Earlier this year I tried, unsuccessfully, to spur some talk in the progressive blogosphere about the provisions made in most Iraq troop withdrawal plans for "residual" forces to fight terrorist cells, deter foreign intervention, and prevent wholesale communal "cleansing." I did so in the hopes of illustrating a progressive consensus, extending even into the ranks of Republicans, for a formula of

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-5816411795035838582007-03-25T19:53:00.000-04:002007-03-25T20:43:47.002-04:00

South-bashing is definitely in fashion in progressive circles these days, but a recent Matt Stoller post at MyDD takes it to a whole new level. Turns out, according to Matt, that the South is responsible not only for what he considers to be the excesses of Cold War politics, but for the labor movement's support of same.Here's Stoller's tortured logic, at some length:The roots of this [national

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-39403056432938131712007-03-23T19:34:00.000-04:002007-03-24T03:26:30.465-04:00

The first thing many people heard about John and Elizabeth Edwards' dramatic press conference yesterday was a raft of "breaking news" bulletins suggesting that the former senator was going to suspend his campaign, or perhaps even drop out entirely, because his wife had been diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer. Turns out the whole wave of "reports" was based on a single blog post on the site of

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-88830293430756027122007-03-21T12:15:00.000-04:002007-03-21T17:19:57.673-04:00

Well, I guess I'll lose my blogger license if I don't join the rest of the hep world and do a post on the YouTube pseudo-spot, "Vote Different." In case you somehow missed it, this is a short video produced by some so-far-anonymous Barack Obama fan appropriating images from an apparently legendary 1984 Apple ad introducing the Mac, and identifying Hillary Clinton with the Big Brother of the

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-31703948850800312342007-03-20T16:50:00.000-04:002007-03-20T17:54:23.995-04:00

E.J. Dionne's Washington Post column today takes stock of the effect of the Iraq disaster on the general drift of U.S. foreign policy:To understand how much the Iraq war has transformed the way most Americans think about foreign policy, consider what passed for shrewd analysis four years ago. The words on the "in" list included "unilateral," "bold," "robust," "transformative" and "sole remaining

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-55874211498260822412007-03-18T16:43:00.000-04:002007-03-18T16:50:22.062-04:00

When California formally enacted legislation last week moving its 2008 presidential primary to February 5, it took a big step towards making that day not only by far the earliest and most massive Super Tuesday in history, but perhaps a de facto national primary that would almost certainly end the nominating process for both parties.Today’s New York Times has a handy-dandy chart listing the 8

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-6668466128773094152007-03-13T18:48:00.000-04:002007-03-13T18:58:59.921-04:00

In his long, compelling take on Dinesh D'Souza's The Enemy At Home in The New Republic, Andrew Sullian makes one point about D'Souza that I think may be characteristic of others on the Right:Where he differs from the religious right is in his willingness to find the proper political authority, the proper models of political virtue, in Islam. Islam and Christianity together: that is D'Souza's

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-49976602534140045002007-03-11T13:31:00.000-04:002007-03-11T14:52:40.421-04:00

Yesterday Kevin Drum drew attention to a March 1 letter sent by a collection of Christian Right poohbahs to the chairman of the board of the National Association of Evangelicals calling for a repudiation and/or firing of NAE governmental affairs director Richard Cizik because of his high-profile advocacy of action on global warming. Signed by such political luminaries as James Dobston, Tony

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-67225594131954643092007-03-08T14:50:00.000-05:002007-03-08T15:33:28.398-05:00

One of my serious pet peeves about the blogosphere is the widespread abuse of a legitimate but limited principle: in intra-progressive debates, one should make some effort to avoid the use of language and lines of argument that reinforce "the other side's" attacks on progressives generally.Taken to an extreme, as it often is, all the fretting about "frames" and "memes" has a very chilling effect

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-4760799511453737252007-03-06T14:42:00.000-05:002007-03-06T17:19:24.064-05:00

There's another interesting debate underway at the New Republic site between Boston College's Alan Wolfe and George Mason's Peter Berkowitz, continued from earlier essays by Wolfe at TNR and Berkowitz at The Weekly Standard. Its ostensible subject is whether Wolfe was engaging in Dinesh D'Souza-style tactics a few years back when he wrote about the tendency of some contemporary U.S. conservatives

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-33373818057062871242007-03-06T12:43:00.000-05:002007-03-06T12:43:12.860-05:00

Last week I ran across a discarded advance "review" copy of an uncoming book by Jules Whitcover entitled Very Strange Bedfellows: The Short and Unhappy Marriage of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. I couldn't resist a stroll down a distant memory lane to a period of scandal, official mendacity, polarization and an unpopular war not entirely unlike our own. I was particularly entranced by

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-35493774198377010062007-03-05T11:48:00.000-05:002007-03-05T12:48:30.940-05:00

In case you somehow missed it, the execreble Ann Coulter really outdid herself over the weekend at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference in Washington, essentially calling John Edwards a "faggot." She was duly denounced by (s0 far) three Republican presidential campaigns, though the audience that was actually listening to her apparently gave her a big round of applause.

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-54003976114727701962007-03-02T12:15:00.000-05:002007-03-02T14:06:14.640-05:00

With his non-announcement announcement of candidacy on Letterman Wednesday night, John McCain's getting some fresh media attention today, most notably Peggy Noonan's typically frothy take in the (subscription-only) Wall Street Journal. But a far more significant example of the Right's reevaluation of the McCain candidacy will soon appear in a National Review cover story penned by Ramesh Ponnuru (

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-11763944561264533662007-03-01T18:16:00.000-05:002007-03-01T18:32:49.780-05:00

It's a small step towards a modest goal, but nonetheless important: the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Employee Free Choice Act by a margin of 241-185 today, with 13 Republicans joining all but two Democrats to pass the measure. The bill will probably get filibustered to death in the Senate, and Bush has promised to veto it, but still, House passage represents an opportunity to start

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-13575826511620245972007-02-27T17:10:00.000-05:002007-02-28T14:17:57.289-05:00

One of the odd but revealing bits of intra-Left agitprop in recent years has been the lefty blogger campaign against The New Republic, the venerable liberal magazine. Despite its very diverse product (including anti-Iraq War writers like Spencer Ackerman, and seriously lefty writers like John Judis and Rick Perlstein), TNR has often been demonized on the Left, and lumped into the Evil D.C.

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-87632933440636583562007-02-26T23:01:00.000-05:002007-02-26T23:17:53.434-05:00

Another fine post at TNR Online today was Jonathan Chait's LA Times piece about the "Clinton Machine" in the imagination of the political Right. Chait goes through several aspects of the Right's vast investment in Hillary Clinton's inevitability as the Democratic nominee in 2008, and then nails it in terms of conservative fascination with the Clintons:The bigger factor, I think, is that

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-2296229927860569842007-02-26T11:04:00.000-05:002007-02-26T12:13:58.228-05:00

This is likely to be New Republic Day here at NewDonkey, given some interesting new stuff up on its site, along with the news that the venerable mag has been bought by a Canadian media firm that is presumably disconnected from its previous owners' ideological shibboleths. More about all that later.But first up, I wanted to draw attention to a TNR Online debate over Rudy Giuliani's viability as a

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-32562985300336499802007-02-24T22:56:00.000-05:002007-02-24T22:56:33.574-05:00

Speaking of Catholic discipline, and in light of a new national Q-poll showing Rudy Giuliani with a large lead over the rest of the GOP presidential field, I've gotten fascinated with a question that nobody seems able to answer: is Rudy, who is often described as a strong possibility to become the first Catholic Republican nominee for the presidency, actually still a Catholic?After all, the man

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-13686718854160731882007-02-23T18:04:00.000-05:002007-02-23T18:04:25.024-05:00

There's a fascinating article that appeared yesterday in the Washington Post about the Catholic Church's local efforts, via bus billboards and radio ads, among other public relations media, to get believers to go to confession. Timed to coincide with Lent, the Church's traditional period for penance, the campaign is fighting a vast dropoff in the number of Catholics going into the booth on

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-34688083984354721002007-02-23T17:21:00.000-05:002007-02-23T17:22:38.602-05:00

I'm sure no one was surprised to learn that Dick Cheney is refusing to retract his recent statement that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is playing into the hands of al Qaeda. After all, he's been peddling this "objectively working for the enemy" slur against antiwar Americans nonstop for years. But the lack of novelty of Cheney's position shouldn't keep anyone from noting its ever-increasing

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-42048035729056356272007-02-23T13:30:00.000-05:002007-02-26T12:23:17.884-05:00

Today's major political story was former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack's decision to pull the plug on his presidential campaign. He made it clear money was the sole reason. Contra some snarky blog posts suggesting that blogger reaction to Vilsack's wonky if politically dangerous reference to the benefit structure for Social Security earlier this week somehow instantly did him in, it's clear his

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-47577475005288315802007-02-22T15:38:00.000-05:002007-02-22T16:47:17.729-05:00

Maybe I'll get around to essaying a full rebuttal of Markos Moulitsas' gratuitous bashing of Tom Vilsack over the DLC's alleged "warmongering" during the Iowa Governor's chairmanship of the organization. But maybe not. I've learned over time that netroots folk tend to either share Kos' belief that the DLC exists to divide the Democratic Party, despite all its endless and interminable and

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-3041866842165800572007-02-19T16:53:00.000-05:002007-02-20T12:46:41.501-05:00

Last week, playing off both the Edwards Blogger kerfuffle and Mitt Romney's presidential launch, Atrios spurred a bit of blogospheric controversy with a series of posts on religion in the public square.His basic argument, with which I basically agree, is that once "people of faith" inject their religious views into public discourse, the content of those views is fair game for commentary, dissent

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-49455265766419082382007-02-17T13:42:00.000-05:002007-02-18T12:56:53.258-05:00

There's been a lot of buzz around the blogosphere about a phony Abraham Lincoln quote that Bush Iraq War supporters keep throwing out there (most recently senior House GOPer Don Young of Alaska), suggesting that dissenters in Congress during wartime are "saboteurs" who might well be "arrested, exiled or hanged."Lincoln never said that, but the more important issue is the underlying suggestion

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-7514641350788990922007-02-17T12:48:00.000-05:002007-02-17T13:13:45.854-05:00

In case you somehow missed it, the Edwards Blogger pseudo-story reached its denouement this last week, when Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwen resigned their new campaign jobs, citing vast quantities of hate email, including death threats. Anyone who puts his or her name out there in the public square is going to get hateful and abusive communications; I certainly do from time to time. But

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-960650537346996792007-02-16T16:16:00.000-05:002007-02-17T12:15:35.868-05:00

There's a brief but interesting article up on the American Prospect site by music historian J. Lester Feder that plays off the Dixie Chicks "controversy" to remind people that country music's famous political conservatism was yet another legacy of Richard M. Nixon's Southern Strategy.Feder's right that country music got politicized in the Nixon Years, and I can add a few examples to his account,

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-4860795472892452432007-02-15T13:00:00.000-05:002007-02-15T13:42:24.491-05:00

As the U.S. House moves inexorably towards a non-binding resolution rejecting the Bush escalation plan for Iraq, I hope the widespread progressive mockery of this step will subside. It's the first step towards a strategic withdrawal from combat operations in Iraq, not the last.And speaking of next steps, some bloggers who are citing the latest Gallup numbers showing tepid 51% support for a

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1524837786561949622007-02-12T17:19:00.000-05:002007-02-12T19:15:01.790-05:00

Props to Ezra Klein at TAPPED for once again posting on the unsavory but important issue of prison rape, which doesn't appear to have abated despite Congress' unanimous 2003 legislation (signed by Bush) called the Prison Rape Elimination Act.As Robert Weisberg and David Mills pointed out in Slate shortly after the 2003 legislation was signed:[D]espite its grand words and its sponsors' passionate

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1171259734967705642007-02-11T23:26:00.000-05:002007-02-12T00:55:35.040-05:00

It appears that Australian Prime Minister John Howard has finally figured out he should distance himself somewhat from Washington, DC. There's only one problem. He didn't take a shot at his buddy George W. Bush, who is profoundly unpopular Down Under as well as Up Here. No, Howard went after that real American political hot commodity, Barack Obama, and the Democratic Party.In a press interview,

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1171083249490077432007-02-09T23:32:00.000-05:002007-02-09T23:54:09.510-05:00

Why is the Democratic presidential nominating contest heating up earlier than ever? There are plenty of explanations, including an impressive field and the sense that this could be an especially momentous election. But the overriding reason is simply that despite widely-held complaints about the "front-loading" of the selection process in 2004, it's going to be much, much more front-loaded in

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1170970626164430402007-02-08T16:05:00.000-05:002007-02-08T16:37:06.366-05:00

There's a fascinating and important exchange underway on the New Republic site between Yossi Klein Halevi of the Shalem Center and Larry Derfner of the Jerusalem Post about Israel's options towards a potentially nuclear Iran.This debate was spurred by a widely quoted TNR article last week by Halevi along with Michael Oren that suggested Israelis have largely concluded that they cannot live with a

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1170888909674141252007-02-07T16:55:00.000-05:002007-02-08T10:44:02.910-05:00

If you are a regular reader of political blogs, you are probably aware of the burgeoning kerfuffle over certain remarks about the Catholic Church expressed in the past by two bloggers recently hired by the John Edwards presidential campaign. The story has been percolating for a while, but blew up yesterday when National Review's Kathyrn Jean Lopez served up some choice quotes from one of the

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1170827078271245882007-02-06T23:43:00.000-05:002007-02-07T00:45:17.670-05:00

Even as Rudy Giuiliani continues to lead in many GOP presidential polls, there's a raging debate as to whether he could actually be nominated.Just today, Glenn Greenwald did a long, adamant post arguing that social conservatives care more about waging religio-ideological wars than about Rudy's deficiencies on abortion or gay rights. Meanwhile, TPMCafe's Election Central reports that one of the

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1170682827584256012007-02-05T11:22:00.000-05:002007-02-05T11:24:52.910-05:00

Yesterday's Washington Post had an article comparing and contrasting Democratic presidential candidates' positions, as reflected in their DNC Winter Meeting speeches, about exactly how rapidly (assuming they endorse any sort of withdrawal "timetable") they want to get U.S. troops out of Iraq. And over at DKos, Trapper John provided a handy-dandy list with the number of months before withdrawal

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1170547758333316782007-02-03T18:37:00.000-05:002007-02-04T13:35:38.803-05:00

There's a bit of interesting confusion breaking out in the progressive blogosphere about how to react to persistent reports (freshly denied, of course, by the White House) that the administration is planning military operations against Iran on grounds of its meddling in Iraq.Armando at Talk Left did an impassioned post accusing Matt Yglesias and James Fallows of arguing for a shift of progressive

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1170443939540392162007-02-02T13:08:00.001-05:002007-02-02T14:18:59.543-05:00

Although I'm not as convinced as a lot of progressive bloggers that Bush is about to launch a military campaign against Iran, there's certainly enough smoke out there to legitimately worry about fire.There are actually two separate reasons to worry.On the one hand, you've got renewed saber-rattling in Israel about the intolerability of a nuclear Iran. Israeli fears about Iran were nicely

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1170377921539660302007-02-01T19:11:00.000-05:002007-02-01T20:16:10.596-05:00

Mark Schmitt, whom I hold in great esteem, has a long post up at TAPPED on the question of whether Hillary Clinton's ace card in the 2008 presidential race is her hidden support among women, even those who don't agree with her on major issues.Mark's actually responding to a blogospheric exchange with one Linda Hershman, who published a Washington Post op-ed piece basically arguing that women are

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1170371166276105172007-02-01T17:05:00.000-05:002007-02-02T12:39:57.446-05:00

You could almost hear the whirring of emails flying around on Capitol Hill and in the blogosphere after the news this morning that Carl Levin, Joe Biden, and most importantly Harry Reid had signed onto a revised version of John Warner's non-binding resolution opposing the Bush escalation plan for Iraq. " Sources" indicated that Reid would make the Warner resolution the centerpiece of the planned

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1170202381150908752007-01-30T18:45:00.000-05:002007-01-30T19:15:47.353-05:00

Over at MyDD today, Chris Bowers goes on an endearing tirade about netroots denial of Hillary Clinton's current strength in the polls; apparently he's hearing a lot of talk that HRC is in the same position as Joe Lieberman was at this stage in the last cycle, and he demolishes that talk pretty effectively.But by way of introduction, Chris says: "What I am about to write will invariably result in

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1170183560020898552007-01-30T13:26:00.000-05:002007-01-30T17:27:09.900-05:00

On the day after the midterm elections, a lot of Republicans undoubtedly consoled themselves with visions of a 2008 comeback. After all, the electorate's thorough repudiation of George W. Bush eliminated any political obligation for 2008 candidates to run on the Bush legacy. A Democratic Congress would probably start sharing in the opprobrium of Wrong Track voters. And most important, early trial

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1170178794409745752007-01-30T11:52:00.000-05:002007-01-30T18:43:17.076-05:00

It's hardly surprising that analysis of Barack Obama's sudden viability as a presidential candidate dwells on race. He is, after all, a black man whose main source of popularity at present seems to be with white voters. Like Colin Powell, moreover, he is often described as a black man almost perfectly engineered to appeal to white voters, at potential risk to the "authenticity" deemed essential

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1170020515115778072007-01-29T10:33:00.000-05:002007-01-29T10:42:44.333-05:00

Over the weekend Atrios (a.k.a., Duncan Black) named Fred Hiatt, governor of the op-ed pages of the Washington Post, "Wanker of the Day" for publishing Dinesh Dsouza's piece defending his new book, The Enemy At Home. I have to disagree. Dsouza nicely illustrates the dark underside of the conservative case for what we ought to do in response to 9/11 that we are going to hear a lot more about if

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1169781117403876502007-01-27T14:35:00.000-05:002007-01-27T14:42:51.663-05:00

During a recent solitary drive, I did something I hadn't done in a long, long time: listened to Rush Limbaugh for thirty minutes or so. I was curious to learn if Rush's recent extracurricular problems, and/or the November election results, had made him a tad humbler.Of course not. The first few minutes of Rush were devoted to redundant and completely idiotic assertions (on the authority of some

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1169915198386594662007-01-27T11:16:00.000-05:002007-01-30T19:34:27.030-05:00

Former Congressman Harold Ford became chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council last week. It didn't get much attention, other than from the Stonewall Democrats, who want to know if the DLC still opposes a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (short answer: yes) even though Ford voted for it (short explanation: the DLC is not a monolith). It's probably a good sign that nobody

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1169913959215075972007-01-27T10:36:00.001-05:002007-01-27T11:05:59.220-05:00

Over at MyDD, Chris Bowers has the best early analysis of the '08 presidential contest I've seen so far. He understands that Obama's rise, by muddling Clinton's front-runner status, ironically liberates HRC to run a campaign-by-attrition in which her money and broad base of support may mean she doesn't have to win right away. He notes how important winning in Iowa is for Edwards. He suggests that

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1169778307871772352007-01-25T20:54:00.000-05:002007-01-25T21:25:07.900-05:00

Those of you who don't immediately get annoyed when I go off onto one of my theological benders may want to check out a piece I did that just came out in the Washington Monthly about the Anglican schism over ordination of gay bishops. My purpose was to slice through all the lazy rhetoric about "liberals" and "traditionalists" in the fracas, and talk about the older split between Anglo-Catholics

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1169755308061045802007-01-25T14:35:00.000-05:002007-01-25T15:01:48.083-05:00

John Kerry announced yesterday that he's not running for president in 2008.As a from-the-beginning Kerry supporter in 2004, and as someone who's been doing some writing work for him more recently, I think it was the right decision, painful as it was for a guy who clearly wishes he could re-do the last presidential election and get it right (not to mention a guy who was told he had won early on

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1169664328357451102007-01-24T13:17:00.000-05:002007-01-24T13:47:19.736-05:00

I tried to watch the State of the Union Address from a Washington hotel bar last night, but could barely hear it through the noise of drinkers who were completely ignoring the tube. And the fact that even in Political JunkieLand, people were ignoring the speech, probably tells you everything you need to note about the impact of this SOTU.This is at least the second SOTU in a row where the White

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983919.post-1169602244220131472007-01-23T20:09:00.000-05:002007-01-23T20:30:44.240-05:00

I'm not in the habit of calling people who disagree with me stupid or shallow. But I have to admit the impulse to mutter intelligence-based insults grabbed me pretty hard this morning when I read Liz Cheney's op-ed in the Washington Post petulantly suggesting that opponents of the administration's escalation strategy in Iraq just don't want to win badly enough.An example of Ms. Cheney's "analysis

newdonkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09054316935370553151noreply@blogger.com