However much you might personally like the New Yorker's political coverage, it's a sideline for them. Yes, we have a subscription; also to New York. I'd rank the quality of the political journalism in both about equal; both feature an affectation by their writers of a phony elite perspective under which all politicians except perhaps Hillary are stupid trash. Seymour Hersch in the New Yorker is the exception that proves the rule.

I've nothing against elite perspectives. The New Yorker just mostly fails to attain one, decades of pretense to the contrary. The recent cover proves that. What if they had run a cover "satirizing" the Nazi view of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? There'd be no mistaking a depiction of the blood libel for humor to good effect; and the capability of some to mistake the Obamas cover for such only shows how racism is still institutionalized among the New Yorker's editors.

By contrast, that Danish newspaper's Muslim cartoons where mostly wonderful - because they were sending up real flaws of some Muslims. I love good satirical cartoons. Some years back, the New Yorker ran some great ones. But they've lost the art.

Posted at July 21, 2008 6:13 PM in response to New Yorker banned from Obama press plane??? Huffpost gets it wrong.

It would be curious to see the list of 200 - which publications and broadcasters they represent. The New Yorker isn't even primarily in the news business; it's a sideline to their cultural content (and cartoons). It's kind of the Entertainment Tonight of magazines - comparable perhaps with Rolling Stone in its occasional political moonlighting. So are there folks in the seated 40 representing even more peripheral ventures (from the news perspective) than the New Yorker?

Posted at July 21, 2008 3:08 PM in response to New Yorker banned from Obama press plane??? Huffpost gets it wrong.

No political party can serve just the rich - aren't enough of 'em. Nor can a successful economy serve just the rich - for reasons that used to be clear even to Nazi-leaning Henry Ford. It's a broad prosperity which creates the most opportunities for rich and not-so-rich alike. The upward-redistributionist policies of Bush/Cheney are not about serving the rich in general - since the impoverished America they leave behind will restrict the opportunities of the children of the rich to similar degree as the children of the poor (although not to the same direness).

The only reason any smart rich people remain Republican is the stupid anti-business reflex still common among Democrats, exemplified by the recent chorus that oil prices have been raised by "speculators" - because it must always be evil business people behind every misfortune. That's the reverse of the coin that Enron was behind Bush, and that our Iraq contractors are entirely criminal. Yet neither Enron nor Blackwater typifies business, let alone the ethics of the rich. We need more good business people to work within the Democratic Party and enlighten the rest of us.

Posted at July 16, 2008 4:12 PM in response to All The President's Moneymen

The people objecting to this article, why? The claim from left and right is Obama navigates by calculation rather than moral feeling. To do so is to be sociopathic. That statement should be as unproblematic as Wesley Clark's about McCain's qualifications. It's just, on the face of it, by the logic of it, true. But notice, that's if you calculate what it literally means. If you start reacting according to the emotions the connotations might call up for you, you might react as Sully did about McCain, or as most of the commentators have here. Do such emotions constitute part of "moral feeling." Would we be better to stick with the more calculating way of understanding a statement, which is to say nothing crooked, but true and straight calculation of surface meaning without construal of whatever deep shadows may project from the speech or text for us?

Posted at July 1, 2008 7:22 PM in response to The Left and the Right Agree: Obama Is a Sociopath

There has always been monitoring of cross border communications. It was a bit of an inside joke before the Internet went public, then commercial, back in the late '80s and early '90s. We'd stick signature blocks on all e-mail with all the best scary keywords in them - a FU by early e-mail users to colleagues - sometimes just down the hall - who were programming the computers that searched for danger.

Posted at June 29, 2008 2:10 PM in response to John Dean clarifies his remarks on FISA (Olbermann apparently misrepresented his position)

1. He won't fit.

2. The drain would clog with his filth.

Posted at June 27, 2008 5:20 PM in response to Conservative Activist Grover Norquist: Obama Is "Kerry With A Tan"

Nice that you're so terrified of Michelle. Man, if the teenage black girls (i.e., before she went to Princeton) scare you, you really are a coward!

Also, while Chicago's had its share of corrupt politicians, they weren't from the South Side - unless you're thinking of all those famous blacks and Jews who've dominated Chicago's government all these long decades? Such as ... who?

Posted at June 15, 2008 6:12 PM in response to Obama: If They Bring A Knife, We Bring A Gun

It doesn't occur to you that you win the fight if you get your adversary to self-destruct? Obama maneuvered Clinton into a position where she couldn't help but destroy her campaign. Yet he did so in a way that didn't totally wipe her out, owing that it wouldn't have served him to anger her supporters by fully humiliating her.

He's directly said that he won't similarly hold back for McCain. He'll be sure that the public perceives McCain to have attacked first, and dishonorably. Then he'll be sure that when the dust settles, McCain will be horizontal, Obama without a nick.

Posted at June 15, 2008 6:04 PM in response to Obama: If They Bring A Knife, We Bring A Gun

Everything you need to know about McCain: When he crafted a campaign finance reform provision to forbid rides on corporate planes, he added an exemption just in case the corporation that owned the plane was owned by a his wife - or another family member.

Now, if the plane were owned directly by the relative, this wouldn't be much different than a ride in the car. But a corporation is a separate legal person, no matter who holds the stock. McCain is corrupt to the core. He'll be a laughing stock by the end of this. He's another Bob Dole, but without the basic personal integrity.

Posted at June 15, 2008 5:56 PM in response to Obama: If They Bring A Knife, We Bring A Gun

"Gang leader"? Oh, I get it, you mean "black." Because otherwise you'd be saying "general," or "sheriff." I'd say Obama's employing the Powell doctrine here. Please tell me in what Western the sheriff goes after the knife fighter with knives, rather than guns? Guns, in our myth, are the more honest, more honorable instrument.

Posted at June 15, 2008 5:46 PM in response to Obama: If They Bring A Knife, We Bring A Gun