I’ve always admired Michael Moore immensely, but after watching his extended talk with the folks at Democracy Now, I’m dangerously close to upgrading my admiration to hero worship. Here’s why: a good portion of the interview is devoted to the Oscar speech he gave in 2003 — after he won Best Documentary for Bowling For [...]
Jonathan Chait pretends to make a reasonable argument about the Gaza tragedy: I consider settlements a very major problem. I do think, though, that the more important problem is the refusal of Palestinians to accept the legitimacy of any Jewish state. In a 2009 poll, 71% of Palestinians said it was “essential” to have a [...]
I just finished reading Obama’s remarkable Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. There’s some really lovely stuff in there, especially towards the end, where he tackles the gulf between the ideals of the great peacemakers in history — the Martin Luther Kings, the Ghandis — and the ugliness of human nature: But we do not have [...]
Sarah Palin, answering a question on whether she thinks she’s qualified to be president: And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the kind of a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fact resume that’s based on anything but [...]
Via Kevin Drum: Exxon Mobil, based in Irving, Texas, spent $14.9 million lobbying in the six months, 23 percent more than the $12.1 million laid out by companies that make solar panels or wind turbines to generate electricity, London-based New Energy Finance said today in a note to clients. Enough money, I’m sure, to bury [...]
Feingold reacts to Obama’s depressing desire to legalize indefinite imprisonment without trial: You have discussed this possibility only in the context of the current detainees at Guantanamo Bay, yet we must be aware of the precedent that such a system would establish. While the handling of these detainees by the Bush Administration was particularly egregious, [...]
The Bush-era torture memos that Obama released last month make for some horrific, gut-churning reading, but not necessarily in the way you’d expect. The Enhanced Interrogation wing of the Republican party would have us believe that it’s not torture until someone gets drawn and quartered, and certainty there’s none of that kind of stuff in [...]
A useful way to look at politicians is as bags of action and rhetoric that approximate some set of ideals. I’m talking about the big-box ideals, certainly — conservatism, liberalism, etc — but also the more specific ones, like commitment to transparency in government, or freedom of the press, or a reformed penal system. And [...]
Ross Douthat, on the brainless stimulus “compromise” we’re about to be saddled with: Now fiscal responsibility is generally a good thing, and so a centrism mindlessly focused on tweaking legislation away from deficit spending has its uses. But what Nelson, Collins, Specter and Co. have done isn’t a new kind of politics. It’s the definition [...]
From Harper’s Weekly, a reminder of what an incredible sea change our new president represents: Upon taking office, Obama ordered all secret U.S. prisons closed immediately, and the detention center at Guantanamo Bay closed within a year; he stopped the torture of American prisoners; granted access to all U.S. detainees to the International Red Cross; [...]
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