Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2786

Palin's Chances

Larison is betting that Palin won't get the GOP nomination. He admits that it "is possible that the GOP will decide to immolate itself as part of an
elaborate reality TV experiment, but they have every incentive not to
want to do that":

If she did somehow pull it off, Democrats would spend most of thesummer and fall of 2012 rubbing their eyes in disbelief at their goodfortune. Even in a fairly polarized national electorate whereMcCain/Palin could manage to get 47% of the vote in the midst of...

The Ethics Of Howie Kurtz

Regardless of the merits of Patrick Gavin's complaints about the clubbiness of Howie Kurtz's CNN press show, it seems to me unethical and slimy to rebut the claims by violating a personal email sent by Gavin to Kurtz. This is not the first time Kurtz has done this.
















Howard Kurtz - CNN - Patrick Gavin - Reliable Sources - Journalism

Michael Steele Was Right

Consider the statement that gave Bill Kristol the vapors and had the neo-imperial triumvirate, McCain, Butters and DeMint, hounding him over the weekend:

"It was the president who was trying to be cute by half by flipping a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan."

This is a little cutting, but not far off. Obama has never been a pacifist; he's a Niebuhrian realist, as he keeps telling us. And in 2001, there was a clear case for removing a regime that ...

The Tea Party And Marc Thiessen

The supporter of a presidency that claimed unlimited power to detain anyone, including citizens, without trial, and torture them until they gave the government the answers they wanted, is now posing as a tea-partier! Yes, the defender of total executive power and abrogation of habeas corpus and sliming those lawyers wh defend terror suspects ... now presents himself as a latter-day John Adams. Look: you can't see these people lack chutzpah. And a man in an administration that increased...

Networking

Sam Biddle, a recent Philosophy grad, continues to describe his NYC job search:

I am not entirely sure what networking is, and I'm not sure anyone elseis either. I am somewhat sure that I am not doing it. I've been giventhe gist of it before. I know that it's all about meeting the right people, and making new contacts, and following upand other italicized things. L___ takes it upon himself now and then toexplain it to me—frustrated, exasperated—how one can turn a strangerinto an employer...

Where Are The Jobs?

Hale Stewart searches for a cause:

Productivity is still increasing.
This means businesses are still getting more and more out of their
existing workforce. Because of high unemployment, there is the added
benefit of lower wages/salaries. From a business owner's perspective,
this is a win/win scenario.

Unemployment - Business - United States - Business and Economy - Small business

Talking Points That Need To Die

Bernstein tries his best to convince Sharron Angle to get some new material:

No one is going to vote against Barack Obama in 2012 because he voted"present" in the Illinois Legislature, before he served in the UnitedStates Senator for four years, and before he served as President of theUnited States of America. No one is going to vote against Barack Obama for re-election because hedoesn't have the experience to be president.  Really.  Trust me on thisone: it's not going to be a winning...

Living In The USA

Will Wilkinson plays devil's advocate and argues against birthright citizenship. Abolishing it is unlikely to happen - it would require a constitutional amendment - but the EU's immigration experiment is still worth highlighting:

The EU's shortcomings, from bureaucratic micromanagement to afloundering common currency, have obscured its great practical andmoral triumph: the dramatic expansion of European mobility rights andthe inspiring integration of the continent's labor markets. WhenBritain...

The Future Of The Family

From Reihan's nuanced take: 

Family forms have always been diverse, Ozzie-and-Harriet was always an
imperfect portrait of family life for many if not most Americans. Yet
the fact that the balance is shifting even further away from two-parent
households is going to stretch public resources to the limit.

E.D. Kain is more upbeat.

Family - United States - Home - Work - Work and Family

Sobering Up

Brendan Koerner profiles AA:

As dependence grows, alcoholics also lose the ability to properlyregulate their behavior. This regulation is the responsibility of theprefrontal cortex, which is charged with keeping the rest of the brainapprised of the consequences of harmful actions. But mind-alteringsubstances slowly rob the cortex of so-called synaptic plasticity,which makes it harder for neurons to communicate with one another. Whenthis happens, alcoholics become less likely to stop drinking...