Patricia Cohen:
Conservative media, Mr. Sanchez wrote at juliansanchez.com — referring to outlets like Fox News and National Review and to talk-show stars like Rush Limbaugh, Mark R. Levin and Glenn Beck — have "become worryingly untethered from reality as the impetus to satisfy the demand for red meat overtakes any motivation to report accurately." (Mr. Sanchez said he probably fished "epistemic closure" out of his subconscious from an undergraduate course in philosophy, where it has a technical meaning in the realm of logic.)
As a result, he complained, many conservatives have developed a distorted sense of priorities and a tendency to engage in fantasy, like the belief that President Obama was not born in the United States or that the health care bill proposed establishing "death panels."
Ezra Klein:
"Retconning" is, well, a nerd term for "the deliberate changing of previously established facts in a work of serial fiction."
Ezra applies it to "death panels", and gives a great example of what Patricia Cohen is talking about. Parents, of course, skip the technical jargon and refer to it as "making things up.
Maureen Dowd:
You kept expecting Tom Hagen to jump up and object to a senator’s question on behalf of his Don.
The wood-paneled Senate committee room had an old-school look. The combed-over committee chairman, Carl Levin, had an old-school look. And the Congressional hearing trying to illuminate surreptitious and avaricious behavior by an amoral, macho gang was the 2010 equivalent of the 1950s Mafia hearing depicted in "Godfather II."
Dan Schnur:
The conventional wisdom was that Proposition 187 was a disaster for Republicans. It’s far more complicated than that.
Hiroshi Motomura:
Born of fear and anger, Arizona’s attempt to enact its own immigration regime and to allow selective enforcement is impulsive extremism. This is yet another sign of the urgent need for Congress and the president to address tough questions of immigration policy and to adopt the durable solutions that can only come from federal legislation.
Ruth Marcus:
Perhaps not coincidentally, Graham's closest friend in the Senate, John McCain of Arizona, is in a tough reelection race in a state with a large number of illegal immigrants, a noxious new immigration law -- and a primary opponent flaying McCain for his previous squishiness on the topic.
You could understand why Graham might want to spare recovering maverick McCain from an immigration debate. And you could understand why Graham, censured by three chapters of the South Carolina Republican Party for fraternizing with Democrats, might want to ease some of the heat he's been taking for pushing "Grahamnesty."
Michael Gerson:
Arizona's new immigration law is understandable -- and dreadful.
Compared to Arizona, Bush (Gerson was a speechwriter) actually had a decent immigration record in Texas, and a decent position in DC. Not so true for people who voted for him.