drat fink
View current page
...more recent posts
Wednesday, Jan 14, 2004
ass wholes
"When I ask him what the establishment is doing to stop Dean, Reed grimaces slightly, as if he's just taken a sip of castor oil. "What are we doing to stop him?" asks Reed. "From our standpoint, this has always been up to the candidates themselves." Reed and his colleagues at the DLC--often painted by liberals as a centrist Death Star, bulging with corporate money and insidious influence over party affairs--have published a few op-eds comparing Dean's candidacy to George McGovern's disastrous 1972 run. But that's about it. Some DLC operatives are working with Lieberman, others with Edwards. The New Democratic Network, a DLC-descended PAC, hasn't attacked Dean; instead, they've praised his use of the Internet to build a campaign organization. "Let's back up to your central premise," Reed continues, gazing wearily at a 7-inch-tall cup of Starbucks sitting before him on a conference table. "There is no establishment. We"--meaning Washington Democrats--"are a constellation of interest groups and ideologies and congressional voices. The evidence that there isn't an establishment is just the mere fact that we have so many candidates--and such a collective inability to choose between them."via poorman
curbside service
"Suddenly it’s like—why not? It’s like, boom boom boom, an epiphany—quantum theory of sitcom! It was, like, nobody’s doing this! Usually, there’s the A story, the B story—no, let’s have five stories! And all the characters’ stories intersect in some sort of weirdly organic way, and you just see what happens. It was like—oh my God. It was like finding the cure for cancer.”
Tuesday, Jan 13, 2004
ordinary boys
wolff on brooks v. belle on everyone
dean doom
"But a look at the last half-year of media coverage -- from the contentious treatment Dean received on "Meet the Press" in late June, through the often harsh Time and Newsweek cover stories last week -- raises the question: Has his anger been so uncontrollable, his campaign miscues so frequent, are his political chances so unlikely as to merit the unrelenting focus on anger, "gaffes" and so-called unelectability that has come to dominate reporting on Dean? "
dont cry for me, ken auletta
"Ken Auletta writes about the George W. Bush Administration’s relationship with the American press, and about how the President manages to keep reporters at a distance."
new zoo revue
"In other words, Scarlett knows a thing or two about the ins and outs of the Bush administration's environmental policy. And as former director of the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank, she has strong opinions about the ideology behind that policy. Scarlett staunchly defends Bush's environmental policy as a shift toward more sophisticated environmental governance -- an approach she calls the "new environmentalism." Although aspects of this approach are ambitious and intriguing, it is based on some assumptions and strategies that environmentalists doubt, fear, and ridicule. In an effort to bridge the hostile divide between the powers that be and the environmental community, Grist tracked down Scarlett during a recent visit to her hometown of Santa Barbara, Calif., to discuss the philosophy of rollbacks, the invisible hand's "green thumb," her view on public comments, and life with her solar-activist husband."
college admissions
heres a link to the War College report which outlines the administrations failures with regard to iraq and the war on terror, in general. damn that "liberal" military. theyd better shut up or someone might cut their veterans benefits again.
kurtz so bad
"The Post's political editor, Maralee Schwartz, tells Auletta that Rove and former White House aides Karen Hughes and Ari Fleischer all suggested Milbank was in the wrong job. Initially, she says in the piece, "there was a lot of attitude in his copy" but this "got detoxed in the editing process and Dana has come to understand his role better." Executive Editor Leonard Downie is quoted as praising Milbank's reporting."
batter up
"There is no doubt about Howard Dean's abilities and qualities for being president," Mr. Soros said after giving a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace sharply critical of the administration's foreign policy. "Other candidates are also qualified. I'm also a great advocate of Clark and Kerry."
All three, he said, had views very similar to his own. "I'm not picking one particular candidate," he added, "but I am keen on Dean."
crown thy good
"He protested that he was a journalist but they stuck a shoe in his mouth anyway. They also hurt his leg. One of the soldiers told him: 'If you don't shut up we'll fuck you.'"