Ross Douthat says “Let’s Make a Deal” on health care reform. Analyzing some choice quotes will illustrate his faux-centrism and tendency towards false equivalence. “The Republicans are convinced they’re inches away from killing off a fundamentally misguided piece of legislation.” No, they’re convinced they’re about to kill Barack Obama’s presidency. Stopping health care reform is … Read more
I’m not always wild about The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, but I think he has a very perceptive post about Israel’s relationship with the United States. He points out that the ultra-conservative governments that have been in power lately have been doing their best to alienate their potential American supporters, particularly young American Jews. Namely, that … Read more
Perhaps inspired by the beauty that is our new blog, the Harvard GOP relaunched their website yesterday, giving harvardgop.org a patriotic, deeply American makeover. The new site makes heavy use of the “Ken Burns effect” with dynamic and engaging photos of Newt Gingrich standing at the front of a table. I learned from a quick … Read more
Ahmadinejad’s recent announcement that Iran will proceed to weapons-grade enrichment of uranium has brought much of the Western world to its senses about talking the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism into giving up its nuclear quest. On Obama’s recent call for sanctions, the BBC reports (emphasis mine): The president sounded not unlike his predecessor … Read more
Harvard Thinks Big was billed as an “important” event. Its Facebook page was ebullient. Expectations were high. “A dream team of 10 Harvard professors will each talk for 10 minutes about the 1 thing they’re most passionate about…Inspired by TED Talks (Ted.com) and motivated by what makes Harvard great — amazing professors, cutting-edge research, and breakthrough ideas…” But somehow … Read more
You can learn a lot by watching TV, it turns out! Here’s what I learned by watching this morning’s “Morning Joe.” First, it’s okay to be a druggie, boozing, womanizing liberal so long as you support covertly aiding the enemies of our enemies (mistaking them for our friends). This we learned from Joe Scarborough’s … Read more
So today the European Union issued its long-awaited statement on whether or not it would bail out Greece. The answer was a clear and unambiguous signal to global financial markets: maybe-kinda-sorta-let’s-see-where-it-goes-from-here-and-then-we’ll-talk. For those who haven’t been keeping score at home, Greece is in quite a bit of financial trouble (much like California), due to government … Read more
I’m glad to see my Crimson column of October 18 is still getting some attention! I had written that discrimination against atheists, both in the legal arena and in the popular mind, is a serious problem — not the biggest problem in the world, but a problem worth noting and criticizing. In his critique of … Read more
Last Wednesday, the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, at last treated Iran’s nuclear program with some of the honesty it deserves: he admitted that it’s up to Iran whether or not it wants to build the bomb. Although on one level this forms the latest round in saga of political posturing between two sides, it … Read more
In today’s Crimson, Avishai Don argues that, if California’s voter-approved gay marriage ban is upheld in the courts, it will “legitimize the concerns of the segregationists four decades ago.” But the correlation between Perry v. Schwarzenegger and Loving v. Virginia is, legally speaking, less than one-to-one, even though the comparison makes for a compelling emotional … Read more