So Lila has asked us all here to write a piece about what we're reading this summer. As the former editor 'round these parts, I thought I'd jump in here first to get the ball rolling. Ok, here goes.

Despite running book clubs here for over a year, I'm actually pretty terrible at reading books. There are only so many pages I can read without wanting to click. I suppose it's because Google is making me stupid (or at least making my brain desire more interactive stimulation when it learns), but I usually read three or four books at a time and usually only get through one of those four.

A few days ago, I finally picked up Drew Westen's The Political Brain. It, and a few other books, have me kind of depressed.

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The NYT's rehash of Democrats' "southern problem" is a pretty remarkable accomplishment. 1,300 words on the first African-American nominee's ability to compete in the historic site of slavery and Jim Crow without the words "racism" or "prejudice" or any other phrase that put the trends both current and historic in proper context.

Instead, the "paper of record" chose to whitewash history with polite euphemisms. On why white Southerners left the Democratic Party:

But voters' allegiance was rocked in the 1960s by the Democrats' leadership in passing civil rights legislation, and whites began to move to what Republicans asserted was their more natural ideological home. [emphasis added]

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