The Bloomberg political correspondent, Roger Simon, put it best last night on one of the cable yap shows. He said he had heard people say they had recently read maybe "three Jackie Collins" or "three Susan Browns" but he had never heard anyone say he had just read "three Shakespeares."
At least he hadn't heard that [...]

Poor Don Rumsfeld. History will remember him as an engineer not of one but of two entirely separate U.S. military catastrophes. I'm not sure which historical figure can match that record.
He will also be remembered as an official who brimmed with and was ultimately consumed by his own hubris, arrogance and self-delusion. Oh yeah, his [...]

Pity the poor citizens of Mississippi. Not only are they still digging out a year after Katrina. Now they also have to put up with a plague of politicians -- from the President himself down to a claque of Congressional Democrats.
The pols have descended on the washed-out Gulf town of Biloxi in their transparent attempts [...]

So now we know for sure -- it seems-- who the initial leaker was in the still sputtering Valerie Plame affair. None other than former Deputy Secretary of State Dick Armitage.
My good buddy and Nation colleague David Corn reveals it all in, Hubris, his soon-to-be-published book he has co-authored with Newsweek investigative reporter Mike Isikoff. [...]

Faster, shorter movie review: Little Miss Sunshine is fabulous.
It's been a long, long, long time since I have so thoroughly enjoyed a movie. Go see it this weekend and report back.

Stuck on one of L.A.'s notorious freeway's Thursday evening, I passed the time listening to CNN's Anderson Cooper (absolutely NO relation) on my XM radio. At exactly 21 minutes into his prime time show he came up with this startling segue into a 30 secord "reader" story about the French willingness to contribute troops to [...]

It's getting kind of wet and smelly inside that big GOP tent. Some big time Republicans aren't bothering to step outside before letting loose with a pungent political whiz.
There was John McCain yesterday, campaigning for Ohio Republican Senator Mike DeWine, sounding very much like Jack Murtha and hosing down the White House for misleading Americans [...]

Looks like George W. Bush's political team may be playing out its last card and coming up way short. As noted in the post below, Bush took a calculated risk in this week's press conference by once again trying to link the war in Iraq to Al Qaeda.
He may have, however, gone one lie too [...]

Don't know about you, but I'm with George W. Bush when he says  that the war in Iraq just might be "straining the psyche" of Americans.
Listening to his Monday hour-long press conference certainly strained the heck out of my psyche.  I don't fault the guy for being inarticulate. But irrational -- and mendacious-- are two [...]

Dog days of summer. Woof woof. See you on Tuesday the 22nd. Talk among yourselves. Don't throw any chairs.

Fidel Castro celebrated his 80th birthday yesterday. It might very well be his last.
The nature of dictatorship is such that El Jefe Maximo has categorized his illness as a "state secret." Witholding as much information as possible from the very people you claim to represent is a defining characteristic of any authoritarian regime which, after [...]

Yikes! I had a software meltdown and lost a 1500 word post I just did on the wonderful work of Michael Berube. I've had a 16 hour day and I'm way too tired to reproduce the whole thing. So you're off the hook.
Let me just say that Michael has taken on and accomplished the most [...]

I've started editing a new justice and journalism blog as part of my work at the USC Annenberg School. We're aggregating a daily, scrolling feed of social-justice related reporting. We're still in semi-beta mode and soon we will be expanding the material posted and even opening up for comments. But take a look, bookmark it, [...]

That screeching, grating, shuddering noise you hear is the Bush White House scraping bottom. First comes Tony Snow casting out the pathetic party line that anyone who criticizes the war in Iraq is encouraging another 9/11.
Given the latest poll numbers, that would mean that just about 3 out of 5 Americans have now joined up [...]

Legendary Communist and, later, legendary ex-Communist Dorothy Healey died last Sunday at age 91. At barely five feet tall, with piercing blue-gray eyes, a razor sharp-intellect, often a pipe or a panatela in her hand, Dorothy was a power-house orator, a relentless organizer, and fireball of political energy and optimism.
She was also a friend of [...]

Amidst the early yakking about the Lieberman defeat, one posting at Tapped really got my attention. Alec Oveis argues that pouring so many resources into defeating Lieberman might have been a gigantic "waste of influence" by the netroots. Instead, he says, a better target would have been some vulnerable New England House Republicans. Defeating them [...]

Please don't call me or disturb me right now. I plan to spend the next several hours Rolling On The Floor Laughing.
Joe Lieberman has lost his Democratic primary election to Ned Lamont but now says he plans to run in November as an independent. My, my I love it.
Wasn't it the Gore-Lieberman supporters who have [...]

By sometime Tuesday night we'll know if Joe Lieberman has survived the primary challenge from rival Ned Lamont.
I haven't spent much time thinking or writing about this contest but I think it would be great if Holy Joe gets booted (and I will be just as happy if Congresswoman McKinney also gets plowed under when [...]

The move by Reuters news agency to fire an Arab freelancer caught doctoring a photo of the Israeli bombardment of Beirut serves as a sobering revelation: liars, cheaters and trimmers are to be found not only among the ranks of politicians, political activists, teachers, cops, soldiers, bankers and bloggers but also -- gasp!-- among the [...]

Stolen from Next Left Notes:

Next Left Notes Is A News Magazine Devoted To Direct Action

By Thomas Good

10.
I flunked out of my adult reeducation class.

 9.
Who needs a Cultural Revolution when you've got Ann Coulter?

 8.
I missed the IPO when Beijing went public.

 7.
I can't eliminate all traces of Confucian Thought from my computer
no matter how often I run [...]