The New Republic

Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and the Century Foundation, argues that there are few issues in American politics for which there is truly a public consensus, but some of the president’s energy proposals may have achieved just that. Check out the latest on TNRtv: READ MORE >>

I'm a bit late getting to this, but over the holiday weekend famous Iraq war opponent Howard Dean visited Fox News Sunday and weighed in on Afghanistan: CHRIS WALLACE: Governor Dean, the president will reportedly decide in the next few weeks whether or not to send more troops to Afghanistan. As a leader of the anti-war movement when it came to Iraq, will the liberal wing of the Democratic Party will you support the president if he deepens our commitment in that war? READ MORE >>

John McWhorter has a pretty strange defense of Van Jones on his blog. He makes two main points. First: Jones was wrong, actually, in disavowing his support for 9/11 conspiracy theory. He signed the document, which can only mean that he supports the idea that 9/11 was planned, or that the Bushies knew something more than they have said, or at least that the charge is plausible enough to require investigation.   READ MORE >>

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It might just be the forthcoming Barney Frank: The Story of America's Only Left-Handed, Gay, Jewish Congressman. According to The Hill, Frank admits in the book that his ultimate political ambition is to serve as HUD Secretary, which would make him America's only left-handed, gay, Jewish cabinet member. READ MORE >>

There's chatter among the political media today about Fox News commentator Glenn Beck's having successfully nailed green-jobs czar Van Jones' scalp to his wall. Politico went so far as to note that the episode "confirmed Beck's stature as the administration's most potent foe." READ MORE >>

Beleagured South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford explains himself to The Daily Beast: You know, everybody is assigned their own secret-agent mission in life. And at times the tricky part, the hard part, is finding out what that secret-agent mission is. Some of us do it early, some of us do it later in life. Sanford, Mark Sanford. READ MORE >>

There are a billion different iterations of the joke, usually inflicted upon children by adults: Child: Daddy, why are you flapping your arms and quacking in the middle of the street? Father: To keep the alligators away. Child: Daddy. There are no alligators around here. Father: See? It's working. READ MORE >>

Conor Friedersdorf again makes the point that, although conservatives outside of Washington are largely correct that their inside-the-Beltway brethren can be divided into hackish, careerist sellouts and people who write and say what they actually believe, their conception of which is which is almost exactly reversed--that is, the moderate heretics and iconoclasts tend to fall into the latter category, and the down-the-line partisan warriors into the former. READ MORE >>

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