Politics Index

Media Getting the Audience it Deserves

September 30th, 2008 admin

With the exception of a slight bump for NBC, ratings are down across the board.

Go figure, huh?

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Our Mister Brooks

September 30th, 2008 admin

Over at Reason, Matt Welch reviews the history of one of the Right’s favorite Big Government Republican hacks:

It was David Brooks who, five months after the attacks on the World Trade Center, saw a “huge opportunity” to “create a governing Republican majority” through Bush echoing “precisely the aggressive foreign policy and patriotic national service themes that John McCain struck in the 2000 primary season,” including “rogue-state rollback,” “nation-building,” and “a summons to national service.” President Bush, Brooks gushed, had finally “broken the libertarian grip on the GOP.”

It was Brooks who, on the eve of the 2004 Republican National Convention, performed an endzone dance celebrating “the death of small-government conservatism,” arguing that the Republicans “must embrace” a T.R.-tastic “progressive conservatism” if they want “to become the majority party for the next few decades.”

And it was David Brooks who, after nearly seven years of a big-government conservatism administration, declared that “official conservatism [has] slipped into decrepitude,” to be saved only by a bunch of young writers, especially Ross Douthat and Brooks’ former assistant Reihan Salam, who together are hawking a new book about–surprise!–how the GOP can create a governing majority by pandering more effectively to middle class “Sam’s Club voters” than the Democrats. “The best single roadmap of where the party should and is likely to head,” Brooks enthused. “It may take a few defeats for the G.O.P. to embrace a Sam’s Club agenda, but sooner or later, it will happen. Trust me.”

So to sum up: The Republican Party has been following David Brooks’ advice for more than seven years now, and as a partial result is on the verge of a near-historic ass-whupping.

Of course, denial of reality never stopped these types before.

by West Virginia Rebel

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PunditMom Says Go Read It: Michelle Obama at MOMocrats!!

September 30th, 2008 admin

It's only about a month until the Presidential election, so you know things are hoppin' busy on the campaign trail.

But Michelle Obama still took the time out to write a special guest post for MOMocrats on Making Our Voices Heard.

It's as simple as registering to vote, but it's so much more than that. Michelle writes:

During the past 19 months, I’ve met with women in towns and cities all across the country. And I keep hearing about how they’re so busy trying to do it all—balancing work, taking care of kids, looking after parents, and managing all their family’s affairs—that it can feel impossible to fit anything else on their To Do lists.

But every day, when women drive to school or work or home, they almost certainly drive pass several places where you can register to vote. In many states, you can register at post offices, public libraries, and the DMV and other local and state government offices.

Go read the rest of what Michelle has to say about why you must go register to vote now. Go ahead. You'll be glad you did.

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Sarah Palin Talks on Social Issues With Couric

September 30th, 2008 admin

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Nobel Committee: We’re Not Ashamed of Our Snobbery

September 30th, 2008 admin

Huh. I thought Americans were supposed to be the close-minded slack-jawed yokels.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Bad news for American writers hoping for a Nobel Prize next week: the top member of the award jury believes the United States is too insular and ignorant to compete with Europe when it comes to great writing.

Counters the head of the U.S. National Book Foundation: "Put him in touch with me, and I'll send him a reading list."

As the Swedish Academy enters final deliberations for this year's award, permanent secretary Horace Engdahl said it's no coincidence that most winners are European.

"Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world ... not the United States," he told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Tuesday.

There's only one response to this. Nuke Sweden. The American literary community should simply refuse to participate in what's clearly a Euro-centric sham of a competition. Two of the best books I've read in the past year were written by American (born and naturalized) writers - The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. I'm only a quarter through A Thousand Splendid Sons by Hosseini, but it's very good so far.

Meh. I guess it's their right to be snobs, but such prejudgment calls the integrity of the competition into question.

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