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Politics

Long Road Home

If you’re looking at the Democratic primary expectantly, hoping for some glimpse of light at the end of this seemingly-never-ending nominating process, the past 10 days indicate that any far-off glow may come from the still-distant fiery implosion of one of these campaigns. Obama appears to have weathered the worst week of his presidential run. He emerged limping, but not completely hobbled, and managed to end it with the flourish of a big endorsement from Bill Richardson.

In what was a bad week for everyone, Obama has maintained his advantage in the face of embarrassing revelations about his former pastor. Since he would have had to deal with the fallout from comments by Rev. Jeremiah Wright sooner or later, God seems to have rewarded Senator Obama for all his years of loyal church attendance with the providence of Geraldine Ferraro’s foolhardy comments about his candidacy. How awesomely ironic that just when he needed some luck from above, she came out and called him a lucky bastard.

Hillary Clinton can’t be happy that in the wake of the Wright scandal, Obama’s speech had commentators across several networks comparing him to Martin Luther King, Jr. But, her biggest worry at this point should be that many in the media, such as the omnipresent editorial staff at The Politico, have begun to paint this race as completely un-winnable for her.

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Posted on March 26, 2008 by - AAG
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Business & Money

Walled In

Check out this time-lapse video of Wal-Mart expansion. The company has crept like kudzu over the entire continent, growing from one tiny Arkansas store in 1962 to over 3,800 in the U.S. by 2005. It cannot be stopped, resistance is futile.

Via boingboing

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Posted on March 25, 2008 by - AAG
False Dichotomy

Authored by DirtyFiveThirty - 1 vote
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Politics

We're No Angels

David Mamet has written a piece in the Village Voice entitled "Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'". Mamet describes a philosophical and spiritual shift in his worldview. As a result, he is no longer a slave to the "perfectionist" impulse of American liberalism. One may be slightly surprised to find him quoting John Maynard Keynes in his introduction, or to hear that he has found succor in the writings of Milton Friedman and Shelby Steele, especially in contrast to his frequent contributions to the Huffington Post over the last several years.

Surprising as it may be, however, the article is a beautiful account of a brilliant man's struggle to reconcile the urge to make the world a better place with the "tragic" view that maybe things are as good as they can be right now. Maybe, he dares to say, they're not quite as bad as we make them out to be.

Depending on where you stand, the piece can come across as a liberal turning 60 and losing touch with the passion and idealism that drives positive change, or as a once-reluctant conservative realizing the folly of measuring the world—and the United States—by a utopian standard. To be sure, he makes some problematic arguments: "I am hard-pressed to see an instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow". Mamet may be more hard-pressed to argue that his comparison of George W. Bush and John F. Kennedy withstands even the slightest application of historical context.

The piece is a great read for anyone wishing to better understand some of the fundamental underpinnings of the partisan divide between conservatism and liberalism, or reason and faith. At the very least it's a glimpse at the personal politics of the guy who wrote "Revenge of the Space Pandas".

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Posted on March 12, 2008 by - AAG
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Politics

The SNL Factor

Saturday Night Live got a big shout out from Hillary Clinton in the Democratic debate in Cleveland two weeks ago (here if you haven’t seen it):

Lorne Michaels was so pleased with the response that he asked writer Jim Downey to get to work on more skits, and thus the first major theme of SNL’s 2008 election coverage was established. There has been much ado about the show’s impact on the Ohio and Texas primaries, and specifically on the media’s treatment of Obama.

Now SNL finds itself the target of media criticism, both for its choice of Fred Armisen as Barack, and for its own perceived bias toward Hillary. Our plan is to continue to accuse everybody, randomly and loudly, of being racist AND sexist for the next few months.

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Posted on March 11, 2008 by - AAG