Today on the Dish, the WSJ tried to defend Perry's threat of personal thuggery while Rove, the Bush family and the GOP establishment weren't running to save him. Jonah Goldberg urged the right to err on the side of electability and the neocons sharpened their teeth. Chait didn't want to credit Perry with Texas' economy since he poached jobs from other states, New Hampshire heckled Perry about climate change, and David Sessions documented Perry's infatuation with war. Perry evolved into his Christianist fanaticism and his rural roots may be fair game.
As to the rest of the field, Bachmann got away with a staffer who stockpiled weapons in Uganda, the GOP elite kept pushing a Ryan candidacy, and Tom Coburn took two steps back with renewed violent rhetoric. McGinnis thought Palin has run out of friends and political allies, while Frum grew dismayed that even after Palin, the GOP hasn't learned its lesson about intelligent candidates. Rockefeller Republicans were a thing of the past, Bachmann didn't know the Spanish word for woman, and Christine O'Donnell had to walk away from TV interviews because she doesn't want to talk about her own anti-gay rhetoric. Pareene and Reihan picked apart the Tea Party's marginal impact on US politics, and Penn Jillette opted for libertarianism for the same reason he chose atheism: not knowing. We measured Obama's approval ratings against past presidents, the market fell because it's August, and Alana Goodman defended Obama's right to go on vacation.
Internationally, Obama, along with the rest of the West, called for Assad to step down, but many analysts criticized Obama for not doing so sooner. The Afghan National Police weren't improving, and Andrew urged the military to keep improving drone accuracy to reduce civilian casualties. The Arab Spring inched closer to Turkey, Hezbollah was finally being indicted, Glenn Beck got caught in his own paranoid conspiracy vortex about protests in Israel, and as Thomas Paine predicted, vengeance in Norway wouldn't do any good.
Around the country, some invested for their retirement with lottery tickets, veterans suffered an unemployment level four points higher than the national average, and raising the Medicare eligibility age could pave the way for bigger reforms. We debated whether elite schools are worth it, Catcher in the Rye still appealed to our 15-year-old selves, and we wondered why Europeans hate ice in their drinks. Yglesias argued for letting ex-cons work, prison doesn't cut the crime rate, and TNC revisited the tragedy of the Civil War. Forgiveness existed in the hearts of victims, and Andrew came to terms with his own vision of God's forgiveness. The Help distorted the lessons of the civil rights movement, and readers defended Star Trek for not distracting them with gay subplots. Experts helped us understand the genetic roots of mitochondrial Eve, while others pondered why Adam and Eve still have belly buttons.
Hathos alert here, coffee rings explained here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.
–Z.P.
The Dish 