You decide (kind of a no-brainer, though):

"High office is like a pyramid; only two kinds of animals reach the summit, reptiles and eagles." --D'Alembert

Our country is spinning out of control -- morally, that is. Hitting the skids. Going down the tubes. Going to hell. Rotting. I can't find the right language. But it's bad, folks. Really bad. These are dark times. I'm not exaggerating for the sake of a blog.

Yesterday, John...

Bill Kristol is desperate to find an ad hominem way to smear Barack Obama, and the New York Times continues to oblige this warmonger and professional propagandist with prominent print space.

Kristol's contortionist tactics have hit an all-time low: In today's column, Kristol faults Obama for "omitting" a...

Allow me to do a little downbeat and wet-blanket prognosticating here, a bit of bad-boy forecasting in the "worst-case" rather than the "blue-sky" register. So get out your tea leaves and/or chicken entrails and read along with me. Please, I beg you, tell me why the following scenario won't in...

Now that John McCain and Dick Cheney have made their surprise visits to Iraq, expect another media-coordinated, officially dispensed round of rosy propaganda about how wonderfully the surge (read: escalation; read: permanent occupation) is going.

Beats me how Cheney can delude himself into believing that he can somehow serve...

The redoubtable Jane Hamsher raised a taut issue recently over at Firedoglake, and I've been waiting for someone to follow her lead. But so far, not a word. So I'll take the plunge.

Jane points out that John McCain's Botox treatments are becoming not only conspicuous, but also flat-out...

For what it's worth, I'm voting for Barack Obama in the California primary on Feb. 5.

For me, the clincher is the war (read: occupation; read: foreign policy fiasco). In case you've been lulled lately into MSM complacency about it, allow me to remind you: We're still throwing serious...

I'd like to elaborate a bit on an ABC News report last week that quoted me (correctly) as proffering a theory about something called "the Juno effect" as a way of thinking about recent abortion trends and abortion politics.

Last Thursday morning I found myself in the middle of...

Methinks that Hillary Clinton's unexpected surge in New Hampshire is attributable entirely to Bill Kristol's inaugural column in Monday's New York Times. Call it the "Kristol factor." He's always wrong. Once again -- it took only a day -- he proved that his powers of prognostication are just not very...

In Sunday's Washington Post, George McGovern, at 85-years-old, sternly recommends that Congress ought to impeach Bush and Cheney ("Why I Believe Bush Must Go: Nixon Was Bad. These Guys Are Worse"), even though much prevailing sentiment runs decidedly against it. He explains that after the 1972 presidential election, he,...

A contemptible editorial in Saturday's Los Angeles Times severely chastises Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for withdrawing the "telecom immunity" legislation in the face of Sen. Christopher Dodd's ongoing filibuster threat. The Times editorial team contends, rather hysterically, that Reid's delaying the bill until January "threatens to undo a...

The pressure's building. Bells. Whistles. Clack, clack, clack. Zonk zonk. Swish, swoosh. Kapowie. Level one, level two, level three. Wah, wah. Game over.

Help! My precious kids want deluxe video games for the holidays. Almost all of their friends (so they say) have them: Wii. X-Box. PlayStation. Game Boy.

Lurking from the digitized shadows, I've noticed--hard to miss it--a recurring theme among many Huffpost commentaries in recent days: lying. In the last few days many prominent bloggers on this site (David Bromwich, Jon Soltz, Robert Scheer, Byron Williams, Sherman Yellen, Benjamin Barber, and...

Let's talk turkey.

The best way to cook a turkey for your Thanksgiving feast: barbeque. On your outdoor grill. Don't be a turkey by shoving it into your oven. Throw away that bag method (it's fowl). Don't wing it by deep-frying. Go cold turkey with those convection devices.

These...

On Monday's New York Times op-ed page, former Attorney General John Ashcroft (and current lobbyist for the telecommunications industry) presents several reasons why the pending lawsuits filed against "the nation's" telecommunications carriers should be abruptly terminated. His arguments boil down to this: the prerogatives of the president operating according...

This morning I drove over to a local hotel in Claremont, California to pick up Walter Benn Michaels, who had agreed to speak to one of my classes about his provocative book, The Trouble With Diversity. While waiting for Michaels (who later gave a fabulous talk to my class,...

It occurs to me, at times, especially those of national stress (in other words, more and more frequently), that your ultimate goal as president, perhaps to some extent not fully intended yet by no means unplanned either, is actually to divide the country irreparably, to "stick it" to your critics,...

Last week David Brooks called Mike Huckabee "the most normal person running for president."

Just two days later, Brooks' go-to guy, speaking before a Christian conservative group, espoused his pet view that the immigration issue should be linked directly to the abortion issue:

Sometimes we talk about...

First off, I must confess that I'm not a huge fan of Stephen Colbert. Before some of you start screaming at this post, let me say that I greatly appreciated his brilliant and daring performance at the 2006 White House Press Correspondents Dinner--as well as a few of his other...

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation named Al Gore a belated recipient of a 2007 MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called "Genius Grant." A spokesperson for the Foundation explained, "We wanted to wait until after the Nobel Peace Prize was announced before we went public with Al Gore as a...