Department Of Please Go Away
There is no room for middling outcomes—Saturday’s elections in Zimbabwe will either be historic or painfully routine. Clinging to the tatters of a liberation mandate claimed in Zimbabwe’s 1980 independence movement, Robert Mugabe is seeking a sixth term as head of a now-failed state. READ MORE >>
French Veep Lessons
The Black Bush?
A few weeks back Isaac speculated about whether race was a factor in the outcome of the Ohio-Texas two-step. Commenter ironyroad asked a few good questions in response: "Why are older Democrats 'reluctant to vote for Obama' on race grounds? What is the nature of this reluctance, assuming there is one in reality? Do they believe that (a) he is going to have crack parties in the White House and bring down the neighborhood? READ MORE >>
Black Guy Needs White House
A riff on Obama and "change"--the best work I've seen from the Onion in many years. Key passage: READ MORE >>
What Obama's "race Speech" Won't Say
I confess some small disappointment that Barack Obama has decided to give a speech on race in America this morning. READ MORE >>
Don't Tread On Hbo
For those who missed last night's premiere of HBO's seven-part miniseries on John Adams: Hope for a replay! I watched, riveted, for two hours straight as director Tom Hooper painstakingly followed the tracks laid out in David McCullough's fine biography of our second president. I reserve no particular READ MORE >>
Television's "booby Trap"
An interesting article in yesterday's Times probed the intersection of predation and profit in entertainment. Since the hand-crank days of COPS, Candid Camera, and Temptation Island (even that dreck now seems painfully analog), reality television has gone through READ MORE >>
The Blind, Leading
Today’s wiretap bombshellimplicating New York Governor Eliot Spitzer in a prostitution sting could result in a resignation as early as this evening, according to several sources. Spitzer’s likely successor, Lieutenant Governor David Paterson, would be only the third black READ MORE >>
Wilentz, Race, And Violins
A TNR reader writes in pointing out this response to Sean Wilentz. Concluding remarks, from "I'm All Out of Violins": READ MORE >>
Exterminate All The Brutes!
Glenn Greenwald is so right it hurts. Some key informatics from John Hagee, the wackjob evangelical preacher who is backing John McCain's campaign from Texas: Towelheads are coming! "Islam in general -- those who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews." READ MORE >>
