Tag: Michael Kinsley

Let’s go to the record.

“There is no secret about any of this. The figures below are all from the annual Economic Report of the President, and the analysis is primitive. Nevertheless, what these numbers show almost beyond doubt is that Democrats are better at virtually every economic task that is important to Republicans.” Not that it’s likely to permate the foul miasma of intellectual dishonesty and outright dumbness that today’s GOP uses to breathe, but Slate‘s Michael Kinsley has recently aired some rather telling stats about the respective parties’ records of economic stewardship of late. “There is nothing here about how clean the air is or how many children are growing up in poverty. The only point is that if you find the Republican mantra of lower taxes and smaller government appealing, and if you care only about how fast the economy is growing, not how that growth is shared, you should vote Democratic. Of course, if you do care about things like economic inequality and children’s health, you should vote Democratic as well.”

Kinsley Selection.

“My candidate, at least at the moment, is Obama. When I hear him discussing some issue, I hear intelligence and reflection and almost a joy in thinking it through…That willingness, even eagerness, to figure things out seems to me more valuable than any amount of experience in allowing issues to wash over you as they do our incumbent president.” In an article on the value of various types of experience (spurred by this recent exchange), Slate founder and Crossfire alum Michael Kinsley comes out for Obama.

Full Slate.

“Where is the analyst at a firm called Forrester Research who used to be quoted everywhere calling us, witlessly, ‘the Slatanic’? Haven’t heard much from him lately.” A happy 10th anniversary to Michael Kinsley’s Slate, home to Dahlia Lithwick, Fred Kaplan, Seth Stevenson, and several other writers and journalists invariably worth checking out.

When the Sun Never Sets.

“The Rove-Bush goal is to return government to its size before the New Deal, leaving the individual more exposed to corporate power than at any other time since the 1920s.” Jack Beatty of The Atlantic Monthly examines Rove’s long-term strategy for the Dubya tax cut, and how it’s cleverly designed to help the GOP in 2004 and 2008. Grim stuff. In a related story, Michael Kinsley offers his take on the dividend debacle: “The recently enacted tax bill is such a shocking and brazen gift for the wealthy that it is hard to describe in anything short of…cartoon-Marxist terms.”

Where’s the Outrage?

All over the press this Saturday morning: moral exemplar William Bennett is a high-roller, losing over $8 million in the past ten years at various casinos. I play a biweekly poker game and have been known to throw down some money in Vegas, so I’d be the first to argue that gambling within limits is a minor vice at worst. But then again, I haven’t made a living peddling sanctimonious garbage like The Book of Virtues or The Moral Compass either. Yes, this is gotcha journalism making entirely too much out of a mildly disreputable pastime – it’s not like Bennett is a child molester or anything. But that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy watching Mr. Virtue squirm on the petard of his own hypermoralism. Mr. Bennett, is schadenfreude a forgivable vice in this instance? Update: Mrs. Bennett drops the hammer. Update 2: Mike Kinsley weighs in, also invoking the schadenfreude angle.

Ends and Means.

Well, I must admit, the fall of Saddam’s regime occurred much more quickly than I had ever expected. (Ten bucks says the Iraqi cabal card decks are all over Ebay in six months.) But, as Michael Kinsley notes, our victory doesn’t answer the tough questions about why we got involved in the first place. And while the images of liberation coming out of Baghdad right now are undeniably stirring, my doubts about this conflict – and the amateurish diplomacy that preceded it – remain…and particularly if Gulf War II spills over into Syria or Iran.