May 5, 2004
Giving credit where it's due: Andrew Sullivan takes on the rightists' attempts to excommunicate John Kerry from the Catholic Church. Unlike my April 24 post on the same subject, which dealt with the anticipated political fallout, his article focuses on those attempting to lobby the Church, and the unsound religious position they put forward.
Beating and torturing prisoners is not "the America he knows"? Didn't Bush used to be the governor of Texas? Also, good move not going on Al Jazeera; the last thing you want to do is appear on an independent Arab-language station that people actually watch. Those who get suckered by a politician's faux-religiosity are already going to vote for Bush, so why bother with this P.R. stunt if you aren't going to make an appeal to at least some of the people turned off by the revelations of the past week.
May 4, 2004
What Chalabi Wrought:
In the popular political imagination we're familiar with the neocons as conniving militarists, masters of intrigue and cabals, graspers for the oil supplies of the world, and all the rest. But here we have them in what I suspect is the truest light: as college kid rubes who head out for a weekend in Vegas, get scammed out of their money by a two-bit hustler on the first night and then get played for fools by a couple hookers who leave them naked and handcuffed to their hotel beds. [link mine]--Joshua Marshall
May 3, 2004
NaziPundit grows tired of the 14th Amendment, waxes poetically on the benefits of racial profiling. [link via Media Matter] I suppose this story would warm Ilsa's heart, though.
For the duration of the de facto NBA Finals, Matt Yglesias' smug, toxic Lakerphobic site is banned from my blogroll, to be replaced by the wise, sensible analysis of Roger L. Simon. Kobe Akbar !!
May 2, 2004
Two important stories of note: Josh Marshall, on the increasingly suspicious role that Ahmed Chalabi is playing in the alleged "Oil-for-Food" scandal, and this L.A. Times scoop, on Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds' purchase of a new home in a gated Beverly Hills community. No word yet on who brokered the sale.
