Congressman Cohen, hero

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Saturday August 08, 2009 · 10:48 AM PDT

2009/08/08 · 10:48

Had to leave Steve Cohen's Town Hall meeting in Memphis this morning because the room was so crowded that, despite air conditioning, I was feeling faint. I asked the very old, very frail man beside me - father of a physician who bravely spoke up for single payer - if I could help him leave too (1.5 hours into it), and he said, "No, thanks - I'm going to stay and get in trouble!" And he had indeed been talking right back - in a fragile but fervent whisper - to the loud-lunged bullies behind us.

mmiddle

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Thursday October 23, 2008 · 6:58 AM PDT

2008/10/23 · 06:58

Several weeks prior to the primary vote, when it was clear that Obama would win, we began to see essays that pleaded for restraint against lording it over Clinton supporters, despite the intensity of that long, fierce fight. The public compliance with that plea was, at least from an Obama supporter's pov, impressive. Obama and his new administration will face a similar but far greater challenge in the wake of the election, and it will be just as important, maybe more important and even more difficult, to make that same extended effort.

mmiddle

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Friday September 12, 2008 · 11:02 AM PDT

2008/09/12 · 11:02

C. Vann Woodward, the noted historian of the American South, once observed that the fundamental difference between the North and the South was that the North’s value system was premised on Conscience, and the South’s on Code. This difference in world view helped explain the difference in their cultures and politics, and his observation has often been helpful to me in trying to find my own place in America, to understand its broadest cultural divide. It is helpful to me now in trying to make sense of the staggering disconnect between the McCain camp’s and the Obama camp’s views of the world.

mmiddle

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Tuesday September 02, 2008 · 2:03 AM PDT

2008/09/02 · 02:03

Call me a depressive realist, but - we all need to stop laughing about Sarah Palin. We need to give up the polls about when she'll drop out, and the lists of sure-fire last straws, and the admittedly very funny commiseration blogs like Mudflat's. Why? because the Republican talking heads are doing a scary good job of rallying behind her and spinning every last one of her problems. She could easily be the next Dick Cheney.

mmiddle

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Monday August 11, 2008 · 6:51 AM PDT

2008/08/11 · 06:51

George Will is a silky scorpion, a velvet stiletto. His column which ran in my local paper yesterday is disturbing for its coded racism.

mmiddle

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Wednesday July 30, 2008 · 8:09 AM PDT

2008/07/30 · 08:09

Interesting how all discussion second-guessing Obama's vp pick is limited to a very specifically limited set of names. Surely, in a country as wide and diverse as this, there must be other equally smart choices available. Why has the conversation been so redundant?

mmiddle

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Friday May 09, 2008 · 12:10 PM PDT

2008/05/09 · 12:10

Not sure if this will be long enough for a diary, but I just wanted to say how much I miss Molly Ivins lately.

mmiddle

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Thursday February 08, 2007 · 2:16 PM PST

2007/02/08 · 14:16

An old friend, who has become unaccountably far right-wing, sends me more-or-less teasing excerpts from RightWingWorld from time to time. Today it was an account of a published story about one of the left's icons, taken from a book by an author I'd never heard of, from a right-wing publisher - a story which if untrue would be clearly libelous. I did a little searching and it looks as though the book came out last fall; the National Review pumped it immediately; it never caught on; but now there seems to be a broader-based effort by the right to talk it up and give it traction. But I can't find anyplace - and maybe I'm just not searching hard enough - where someone has debunked it.

mmiddle

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Tuesday November 28, 2006 · 11:39 AM PST

2006/11/28 · 11:39

Writing in the New Yorker recently, David Denby noted that if Democrats expect to strengthen their recent gains, they will need to come up with a new narrative - a new way of telling the story of life in America. Writing here, Rob in Vermont has offered some insightful constructive criticism of how John Edwards is telling the story of poverty in America. To expand on Rob's suggestions, what might a new narrative of the American story sound like? how might it differ from what we've become used to by now? How would we replace Horatio Alger?

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Congressman Cohen, hero

a plea for restraint and reconciliation

Code and Conscience

closer than a heartbeat

George Will: column in code

a theory of vp picking

Missing Molly

is there a debunking site?

the importance of storytelling