Over at Foreign Affairs, David Rieff has a rather portentous, even penumbral, take on world events, notably the concurrent U.S. disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan, taking a few pokes at the liberal optimism that brought these about. Dave’s nut graph, or perhaps “money shot,” is quite prolonged, but, well, in for a penny, in for…
Author: Alan Vanneman
Too gay! Well, except for the Trio
Over at Slate, Dave Weigel is at the scene when Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson engages in a meet and greet along “Dupont Circle’s cafe-lined 17th St. NW in the historical heart of the District’s gay community”—the quote emanating, as far as I can tell, from a Johnson press release. Seventeenth Street is “café-lined,” I…
Which of these three is different from the others?
Last week the New York Times broke an important story, on the widespread practice of the willingness of the press, including the New York Times itself, to let political and government officials write their own quotes. “Quote approval is standard practice for the Obama campaign, used by many top strategists and almost all midlevel aides…
Dave Freeman Trio— “Rhythm-A-Ning”
Thelonious Monk’s take on George Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm” chords. Freeman on sax, with Tyrone Jackson on keyboards and Kevin Smith on bass. Posted by DBFreebee
Tom Edsall, not really getting a handle on the whole apples to apples thing
Over at the New York Times (yeah, the New York Times), in an entry titled “The Politics of Anything Goes,” Tom Edsall notes, or rather conjectures, that the Obama campaign is spending lots of money on ads dissing Mitt Romney, ads that “target not only whites without college degrees, but in particular white men without…
Pseudo-New Yorker
Legal humor here. “Okay, how about arm-wrestling? Perhaps that would assuage your skepticism.” “Because when I fly cross-country I get covered with bird shit. Unromantic, I know, but it’s the truth.” “No, I’m not afraid of the FAA, girlfriend, and I’m also not afraid of you.” “I don’t have to put up with your damn-fool…
Alan Vanneman, Doubly Wrong
Earlier this week I took a prolonged pot shot at Peggy Noonan, for claiming that the selection of Condoleezza Rice as Mitt Romney’s running mate would be “brilliant choice.” In fact, I said, the selection of Condi would be applauded by about six people, ending my post with an exceedingly under-researched rhetorical flourish suggesting that…
Great God, how naïve!
Back in the day—pretty far back in the day, actually—James Thurber announced that he would no longer discuss T.S. Eliot’s stage rage “The Cocktail Party” with young women. He was tired, he said, of hearing them all exclaim “Great God, how naïve!” Although I’ve never discussed “The Cocktail Party” with anyone, I have a pretty…
Peggy Noonan is brilliant, if she does say so herself
Yes, Peggy Noonan is brilliant, and she does say so herself, frequently. In a recent column, which is 90 percent windup and 10 percent pitch—or 90 percent windup and 10 percent jive, depending on how you score it—Peggy bemoans the lack of “passion” in the current campaign. Naturally, she has an idea—almost an epiphany, as…
Romney folks hyper-sensitive, Politico folks hyper-shitty
Well, that’s a little harsh, isn’t it? Allow me to justify. Today’s Politico has one of those “a plague on both your houses” pieces, this one by Reid J. Epstein headlined “Campaign 2012 turns into a nasty schoolyard brawl.” As Epstein tells it “The decline began as soon as Romney clinched the nomination. The Republican…