A short post here, a word of warning:

Yes, it is a gift, this glimpse of the truth about the Republican right that the looney Richard Mourdock has provided -- and with Akin's "legitimate rape" remark still fresh in many minds. And it is so much fun (for...

"A woman takes pleasure in being a follower and finds ease in obeying a husband who loves her."

Another pious gem from Focus on the Family? There is that distinctive quasi-pornographic pleasure Dr. Dobson took in the idea of obedience -- for a sample, see...

Remember Leona Helmsley? Among other notable items on her resume, she once justified cheating her country by observing that "only the little people pay taxes." And it was the tone that told the tale, as much as the substance, the same tone as in that more recent...

Poor Ed Schultz. The exit poll statistic he couldn't get over was that 37 percent of union households in Wisconsin voted to keep Scott Walker. He thinks Wisconsin is a "wake up call" for unions in general and that they need to get "back to the classroom" with...

Why do I say that? I don't mean they are actually on the take. Too Third World. But they are fundamentally corrupt insofar as they tweak every decision they make that bears on politics in favor of the Republican party. That was first made obvious with the Rehnquist Court's 2000...

It's the least gruesome, but most stunning of the movies in the Lars von Trier oeuvre -- stunning in the original sense of the word, Melancholia, I mean, a merciless cosmic bookend to Terence Malick's salvational Tree of Life. Both...

Unless something very unexpected happens, something that enables Obama to show real leadership at last, Romney will almost certainly beat him in 2012. The conventional explanation is that the jobs picture is not going to improve much between now and then--and the election will hinge, above all, on the economy....

We all know that most big money interests responsible for the recent financial collapse got off scot free -- and then managed to bounce right back while the rest of us were left holding the bag. "Responsible," in some cases, even means criminally responsible for

"The heartbreaking events of this weekend," said one young lady, early on in the evening -- one of Gabby's interns. She got a round of enthusiastic applause. It kind of threw me. But it was just one of multiple rounds of applause to come -- they were a constant throughout,...

I recently got involved in the making of a documentary about celebrity culture called Teenage Paparazzo. It was directed by Adrian Grenier, the star of Entourage on HBO. Adrian is also featured in the movie, which shows in a very personal way what it...

Taylor Branch is a progressive to be reckoned with when it comes to documenting the history of the American civil rights movement. That's why I was so shocked to read his account of Glenn Beck's Fox-hyped rally in Washington on the anniversary of King's historic...

It's been a depressing spectacle. One of the many drawbacks of postmodern political discourse in a mediated age is how quickly and inevitably essentially symbolic "issues" become as real--or even more real, hyper-real--as old-fashioned real issues like tax policy and war. The reason it's so hard to...

What's getting the most attention right now is Dr. Paul on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bravo Rachel Maddow. And of course that is the most offensive of his loony libertarian literalisms. But that's not what Democrats should focus on going into the November elections. That issue...

What I want to get to is the unique sense of self-importance that informs some of the language that Churchmen have been using in response to criticism. I don't need to go into just how vile were the deeds--the actual abuse and the cover-ups. Activists among the abused are tending...

The positive comparison says, yes, it's OK to require people to buy health insurance--we require them to buy auto insurance, don't we?

Republican Attorneys General planning lawsuits are featuring this response: you aren't required to buy a car, that's a choice. So, if you choose to buy...

What is most essential now is creating a "conventional wisdom narrative." Is it going to be that Democrats defied an angry public and rammed this bill through the Congress by manipulating the system -- without a single Republican vote because they were hanging tough? Or is it going to be...

Reality check: Obama carried Massachusetts by 26% in 2008 -- but he couldn't get enough people out to overcome the motivated forces behind Scott Brown. Of course, Brown could have been a pumpkin, it wouldn't have mattered. What got those forces organized was fear of Obama and his Bolshevik-Muslim agenda,...

I feel so ambivalent about the way Hollywood packages progressive messages -- messages I agree with, in substance. But the way they do it, it's a symptom of a basic problem.

The obvious cases are movies about the war in Iraq, from In the Valley of Elah to The Hurt...

It's a minor holiday--but only Christmas gets more build-up. Partly it's the decorations. In the stores, all over people's porches and yards. It's when the weather really starts to turn, and that's like announcement music in the background of the days. Also, it's for kids--grown-ups pretend, so kids will have...

He's trying hard to make that case. As I write, there he is, leading by example on every Sunday morning talk show -- except the Crazy Channel. Which was an interesting choice, especially when coupled with his core message, repeated in almost identical language in every interview. Namely, that the...