Michael Tomasky's Blog, page 74

Michael Tomasky: On Journolist and Dave Weigel

I see that some of you are following the Journolist story. I think that probably means that you'd be interested to know that I'm on it. Or was. It's being ended by Ezra Klein as of this afternoon.

On the Dave Weigel matter, I second everything Marc Ambinder wrote here, including Marc's headline that Weigel should not have been fired:

In hiring Weigel, the Post knew it was bringing on board someone with a style of journalism -- and it definitely is journalism -- that was not orthodox, that...

Michael Tomasky: Al Gore in the age of exposure

I've been mulling this Al Gore thing, but I don't really know what to say about it. I read the police report, and the woman's tale is horrifying. If true. Those are the operative words. Gore has not addressed the allegations directly but has apparently said it didn't happen.

So who knows? Her details sound believable. But people lie all the time in this world, especially for money (she tried to sell her story for $1 million).

David Brooks has some useful things to say in his column today not a...

Michael Tomasky: Philosopher Huckabee

It's not every day that a US politician cites a political philosopher, and since I follow both of these worlds, when it happens, I take notice (with help from Ben Smith).

You may have noticed that Mike Huckabee was recently quoted thus on gay relations:

"I do believe that God created male and female and intended for marriage to be the relationship of the two opposite sexes. Male and female are biologically compatible to have a relationship. We can get into the 'ick factor,' but the fact is two...

Michael Tomasky: The finreg deal

So they reached a deal on financial regulatory reform around dawn. It seems that the bill is strong, not as strong as it could have been, not as bad as it could have been. In other words: legislation. TPM:

Wall Street won a number of battles, but broadly speaking the conference committee strengthened the legislation in some ways, weakened it in others, and for the most part the final bill pretty closely resembles the legislation that passed the Senate this spring.

Big banks won one big fight...

Michael Tomasky: Friday quiz: Tragedy tomorrow...

Something familiar, something peculiar, something for everyone: it's comedy today. That's your extra-credit question. Name the source of my little opener here, and my headline.

Remember: as our regular bunch knows, these are absolutely not trivia quizzes, and I take Himalayan umbrage at any such suggestion. These are knowledge quizzes. Sometimes there's overlap but there's a difference, as you'll see in the very first question. So we're doing some history here and things like that, and we're t...

Michael Tomasky: We're number 7 (out of 7), rah rah

It was often said by conservatives, back during the healthcare debate, that all the polls showing that 84% or whatever of people with coverage were perfectly happy with it showed that there wasn't a problem. It was and is difficult to rebut because there was a small element of truth to it and it's the kind of seemingly common-sensical claim that shuts down arguments.

The only critique of it is that people are satisfied with what they have provided they don't know what other people have. For...

Michael Tomasky: Are Republicans putting elections ahead of economy?

More Kafkaism on Capitol Hill. The Senate Republicans have blocked, along with one Demcorat, Bill Nelson, a "tax-extenders" bill the Democrats have been trying to pass for weeks because it would raise the deficit that they created.

The bill is the result of states begging Washington for money as they slash deeply into budgets and services. While 58 senators want to pass it, 42 oppose it. As you know if you've been reading this blog for any length of time, in the Senate, 42 counts as an...

Michael Tomasky: On Republican mulitculturalism

I certainly took note of the wins Tuesday night by Nikki Haley and Tim Scott in South Carolina - she of Shikh descent, he an African American, both hard-shell conservatives. How much change does this augur?

The Frum Forum posts this list of GOP candidates this cycle who aren't white males, and for the GOP, it's quite a long list. So what's going on?

A certain percentage of people from any ethnic group will go against conventional wisdom and break the mold. Not just any ethnic group, but any...

Michael Tomasky: Did McChrystal want this outcome?

Jim Sleeper bruits an interesting McChrystal theory. Well, actually, it comes from someone named David Seaton, whom Jim credits, but I read it on Jim's regular venue at TPM Cafe:

Seaton suggests that McChrystal -- furious at Obama's time-lines and under-commitment of troops and resources to what the general believes should be a massive counterinsurgency, embedded in a total war -- wanted to be fired, so that blame for the inevitable defeat of the present effort would be placed on Obama and...

Michael Tomasky: McChrystal out, Petraeus in

By the time it happened, the firing of Stanley McChrystal had largely been drained of drama. We knew this morning that he went to the White House, stayed a mere 30 minutes and left, suggesting that he would not be standing next to Obama at any microphones later that day.

So when Obama finally did announce his sacking, it was expected. It was, as I finally came around to writing last night, the best move Obama had. From a constitutional perspective, Obama had to lay claim to the principle of...