That's right, thanks to a change in my work schedule, I'll no longer be able to spend the first 2 hours of Friday mornings pimping the GN blogroll. From now on, that honor will go to Sundays. You're welcome, Sundays. It's your time to shine.
Leave it to Alicublog, the first blog on the list, to make the one single point I wanted to make today. "'THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY HAS LOST ITS WAY' CRY THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY'S MORTAL ENEMIES. The defenestration of every Republican's favorite Democrat has brought much wailing and gnashing of teeth." Go figure. But the liberal media treats it like a story. If Lieberman had won, the Republicans would say that Democrats are headed off a cliff, and thousands of reporters would begin to ask, "Are the Democrats headed off a cliff?" Lieberman lost, so the Republicans say that Democrats are headed off a cliff, and thousands of reporters begin to ask, "Are the Democrats headed off a cliff?" It must get boring for Republicans after a while. When your lapdog acts exactly how you want him/her to act, after a couple decades you'd think you'd lose interest. But they've definitely not lost interest. In fact, their desire for dominance has actually grown (AMERICAblog).
Speaking of Lapdogs, hello Mike Allen (Atrios)! And while we're at it...hello all major networks (Interesting Times)! And knowing they exist, Steve Soto tries to prepare Lamont for what inevitably lies ahead (Left Coaster). Lamont's stayed on top of things amazingly well so far...here's to hoping it continues.
Meanwhile, Avedon points us to a nice Gilliard post, in which he says exactly what I want to say to Marty Peretz and TNR: "Keep digging your own grave."
Dana expresses optimism about the midterms ("Voters vote the issues in front of them. You invoke their parents' time, you lose them. If that's all you've got, you're already lost."), and the only thing keeping me from thinking he's right is the deeply ingrained cynicism drawn from the last three election cycles. Anonymous Liberal (Greenwald) drives the point home: It's just not 1972 anymore (at least I hope so). Anybody with access to a keyboard (cough cough Weisburg cough Cokie cough) who try to appear like they actually understand history by bringing up 1972 (or 1968) probably need to prove they understand what's happened in the 34 years since 1972 as well.
And while we're on the topic, saying "Jonah Goldberg and TNR say it, so that makes it okay," is possibly the single-worst defense of someone I've ever read (Lefarkins).
And speaking of midterms, just in case you were worried that Democrats didn't have HUNDREDS of talking points they could be making, Christy at FDL comes through. And meanwhile, Cliff at Gadflyer tries to spell something out for Cokie. Note to Cliff: your words will never be small enough. I can't wait for "Why Democrats winning both houses of Congress is a bad thing for Democrats" take in mid-November.
Meanwhile, Debate Link reminds us that as long as faux-humans like this exist, then Lamont supporters aren't "angry" or "shrill" or "mean." But then, if you're on the right side of the aisle, you can actually get away with saying this. And not that anybody reading this doesn't know this already, but she's not the only one (TBogg).
BooMan expresses the skepticism that I feel but didn't want to acknowledge. I want to believe that the unveiling of the liquid explosives plot uncovered yesterday had nothing to do with the fact that Bush's favorite squeeze in the Senate was defeated in a primary, but I'm just hard-wired to be completely cynical about it. Especially after Susie pointed me to Olbermann's Coundown report. (And as Larry Johnson says elsewhere, the fact that Dubya and his boys apparently just discovered the threat of liquid explosives is just depressing.)
Oops, nevermind. Once skepticism is proven correct (Digby), it's not skepticism anymore.
Snow said Bush first learned in detail about the plot on Friday, and received two detailed briefings on it on Saturday and Sunday, as well as had two conversations about it with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.Sigh.
But a senior White House official said that the British government had not launched its raid until well after Cheney held a highly unusual conference call with reporters to attack the Democrats as weak against terrorism.
[...]
But Bush's Republicans hoped the raid would yield political gains."
I'd rather be talking about this than all of the other things that Congress hasn't done well," one Republican congressional aide told AFP on condition of anonymity because of possible reprisals.
"Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big," said another White House official, who also spoke on condition of not being named, adding that some Democratic candidates won't "look as appealing" under the circumstances.
And while Athenae is technically correct here, how great would it be if you could round them all up and kill them at once?? Talk about efficient!
Meanwhile, blue at Echidne posts a different take about the new "You can't even take a book onto a plane now" restrictions.
As for Israel...as Billmon has been saying for most of the past 2-3 weeks, it appears as if Olmert has overplayed his hand...his bluff has been called, and he's managed to give up the upper hand. That ain't good.
Wait...culture is supposed to make you more rational (Existentialist Cowboy)??? Well...somebody has some serious splainin' to do then. (While you're at EC, make sure to read Monday's "All the Bad News Has Come True" post. Excellent writing...though obviously depressing as hell...)
Sweet. Missouri's caught on to the winning ways of other states (Fired Up! Missouri). Goodie.
And meanwhile, yikes (Great Society). If the FBI were to actually start investigating the Wingnut Keyboard Commandoes, there's no telling what they'd find. Seriously, what kind of world do we live in if LGF posters couldn't make idle racist/genocidal comments??
Speaking of right-wing bloggers, Wolcott sums it up nicely:
The bloggers who deciphered the Reuters smoke signals: feisty, truth-driven, crackling examples of citizen journalism at its finest, and healthy for democracy.Once you accept that, life become a lot more clear. And speaking of accepting things, here's a note to all women: you must serve your man and pop out however many babies he wants, but if you don't enjoy every second of it, it doesn't count (Pandagon).
The bloggers who championed Ned Lamont's candidacy and harried Joe Lieberman over Iraq: angry, spiteful, rabble-rousing, dangerous to democracy, and personally intimidating.
Meanwhile, Charles at Mercury Rising keeps an eye on the Land of Telenovelas...which is good, considering I've fallen down on the job and haven't written a "Fraud in the Land of Telenovelas" piece in quite a while. Blame Chicago. It knocked me out of commission.
Hopefully this is indeed why Maurice Clarett was thinking about going on a rampage (Rising Hegemon). If so, I suddenly have some sympathy for him. Seriously. When you're behind every country but Turkey in anything, that should be cause for a long look in the mirror.
And finally, Mannion writes 1,500 words about Miami Vice. I don't know what to say about that, other than that this proves he's a helluva writer.
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