Author: Andrew Sullivan

David Boaz is keeping score:

Libertarians often debate whether conservatives or liberals are more friendly to liberty. We often fall back on the idea that conservatives tend to support economic liberties but not civil liberties, while liberals support civil liberties but not economic liberties — though this old bromide hardly accounts for the economic policies of President Bush or the war-on-drugs-and-terror-and-Iraq policies of President Obama.

Score one for the conservatives in the surging outrage over the Transportation Security Administration’s new policy of body scanners and intimate pat-downs.

You gotta figure you’ve gone too far in the violation of civil liberties when you’ve lost Rick Santorum, George Will, Kathleen Parker, and Charles Krauthammer. (Gene Healy points out that conservatives are reaping what they sowed.) Meanwhile, where are the liberals outraged at this government intrusiveness? Where is Paul Krugman? Where is Arianna? Where is Frank Rich? Where is the New Republic? Oh sure, civil libertarians like Glenn Greenwald have criticized TSA excesses. But mainstream liberals have rallied around the Department of Homeland Security and its naked pictures.

Here's Healy on the right's complicity:

Santorum and Krauthammer blame a politically correct mentality that prevents profiling. But the Christmas bomber was Nigerian; the shoebomber, a Brit with a Jamaican father. Should we just give the "freedom fondle" to anyone vaguely swarthy? I have a different explanation for how we got here. For nearly a decade, Krauthammer, Santorum and too many others on the Right have relentlessly hyped and politicized the terrorist threat. But when every bungled attack — no matter how inept — gets the screeching siren treatment on Drudge, what do you expect that political dynamic to produce? Sober, sensible policy? Conservatives could stand to think more clearly about ideas and consequences, cause and effect.

Mark Lilla contemplates it:

[A]fter reading these books and countless articles on the man, I’m coming to the conclusion that searching for the “real” Glenn Beck makes no sense. The truth is, demagogues don’t have cores. They are mediums, channeling currents of public passion and opinion that they anticipate, amplify, and guide, but do not create; the less resistance they offer, the more successful they are.

That three-layered cake of pies has nothing on this abomination:

Tanner Ringerud explains:

An entire Thanksgiving day meal – including turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and even a sweet potato desert – all condensed down into one horrifying cake. The recipe is available on Chow.com, for those of you with adventurous and open-minded families.

For Ron Rosenbaum, there's no contest:

White meat turkey has no taste. Its slabs of dry, fibrous material are more like cardboard conveyances, useful only for transporting flavorsome food like stuffing and gravy from plate to mouth. It's less a foodstuff than a turkey app, simulated meat, a hyperlink to real food.

A reader writes:

This contest is tough because sometimes you don't disagree with a message but rather the smug and condescending way the artist frames it. With that in mind, I nominate Billy Joel's anti-teen suicide ditty "You're Only Human (Second Wind)".

Whoever decided to make that jaunty little ditty about teen suicide is either truly dark or truly a genius. It wins a nomination because it's just so weird.

A lifelong vegetarian recounts how she gave up the "lentil loaf" tradition:

One afternoon, as I was walking to the subway with a friend, I became distracted by a pigeon. It waddled ahead of us, a large bird with a fine breast. So plump. So moist. I knew my thought would sound wrong. It came out anyway. "That pigeon looks delicious," I said.

Because it's time to be thankful for small mercies. And it's a charming little tale.

Abe Sauer reminisces about holidays on the farm:

We never had the kind of daylong Thanksgiving events I've come to know in my adulthood since the farm went under. The all-day social event. The football games. And the drinking. Good grief, the drinking. You don't tie one on during Thanksgiving knowing you have to get up and milk cows at 5:00 AM.

Igor Galynker advises Americans on the correct way to drink vodka:

Russian men drink vodka shots. They drink vodka with gusto while making loud breathing noises. They drink vodka as if their manhood depended on how loud those noises are. After these shots, Russians eat. They eat small morsels of food, chewing pensively, their gaze directed inward like that of a woman in late stages of pregnancy. … I suggest that you, like Russian aristocrats, enact the whole ritual three times before your Thanksgiving meal. I have been doing it with my American friends for twenty years with wonderful results.

Bret and Jemaine also nail it: