After a bout of initial confusion, at least some Palinistas have come around to the view that the Alaska governor’s resignation is actually a canny maverick move after all—or at any rate, have gotten in enough time practicing in front of the mirror that they’re able to say so straightfaced. But I find I can’t […]

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Your daily emetic:  Try to make it through this load of pap–a “manifesto” for “Generation M”—without bringing your lunch back up. A tiny sample: Dear Old People Who Run the World, My generation would like to break up with you. Everyday, I see a widening gap in how you and we understand the world — […]

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Richard Posner is catching flak for his suggestion that copyright law be expanded to cover paraphrase in order to save journalism from fierce digital competition. Thing is, that’s arguably the current state of the law. There’s a little known “hot news” doctrine that dates from the early 20th century and gives news agencies a very […]

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I was expecting to have turned on Barack Obama more strongly by now. I knew for the first few weeks—perhaps even a couple months—I’d just be reveling in the thought that George Bush was no longer president. But soon enough, I felt sure, I’d be attacking Obama almost as vigorously for a totally different set […]

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Matt Continetti finds Sarah Palin quoting Plato, but notes in passing that the line is “perhaps apocryphal”: We like to have other people participate in these activities with us because, as Plato said, “You learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” It’s been a while since […]

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I’ve already written about this at some length, but I see that one of the bogus charges against prospective OIRA director Cass Sunstein is actually holding up his confirmation: Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) has blocked President Obama’s candidate for regulation czar, Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, because Sunstein has argued that animals should have the […]

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So, obviously it’s never a good sign for democracy when the president is bustled out of the country under military guard. But I’m nevertheless a bit perplexed about the univocal condemnation—and simliarly one-sided coverage—of the  ouster of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya. Without pretending to any expertise on the Honduran political scene, here’s what I’ve gathered […]

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From a New York Times piece on Michael Jackson’s finances: “It’s all a mess,” said one executive involved in Mr. Jackson’s financial affairs who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of respect for the entertainer’s family. “No one really knows what is going on, but these are early days.” While I approve of the […]

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Now that the sheer bizarreness of it all is wearing off, I’m starting to register how sad the Mark Sanford saga is. For his wife and chidren, obviously—but also for Sanford himself: The e-mails between Sanford and the Other Woman published yesterday don’t suggest some sleazy lothario so much as a man who,  to his […]

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So, Nico Pitney has been doing fantastic work reporting on the situation in Iran, and the question he asked Barack Obama at today’s presser was certainly a far cry from a Jeff Gannon-style softball. Even so, it was clear at the time—and Pitney has apparently confirmed—that it was coordinated in a broad sense: The White […]

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