Author: Andrew Sullivan

Getting Worse Before It Gets Better, Ctd

The NYT reports on the Empire State's GOP gubernatorial primary:

It put at the top of the party’s ticket a volatile newcomer who has forwarded e-mails to friends containing racist jokes and pornographic images, espoused turning prisons into dormitories where welfare recipients could be given classes on hygiene, and defended an ally’s comparison of the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, who is Jewish, to “an Antichrist or a Hitler.” Yet Mr. Paladino, 64, energized Tea Party advocates and social conservatives with white-hot rhetoric and a damn-the-establishment attitude, promising to “take a baseball bat to Albany” to dislodge the state’s entrenched political class. 

On the other hand, his wife threw a beer at him the first time they met, and she got to like him better.

You Do Have A Platform!

A reader writes:

In posting that Quote of the Day from Jon Stewart, you showed the optimistic Stewart but missed what I think is the most important quote in the piece:

"Jon has chronicled the death of shame in politics and journalism,” says Brian Williams, the NBC Nightly News anchor who is a frequent Daily Show guest. “Many of us on this side of the journalism tracks often wish we were on Jon’s side. I envy his platform to shout from the mountaintop. He’s a necessary branch of government.”

That's why the country is screwed, on a fundamental level.  A "journalist" (attractive man with nice hair) with one of the biggest platforms to report the truth in the country complaining about how he lacks the platform a cable talk show comedian has.  NBC Nightly News averaged 7.8 million viewers this past week.  The Daily Show averages about 1.8 million.  You have a platform, Brian Williams, you just refuse to actually do anything with your platform, in favor of "Well, the Republicans say that Barack Obama is an evil socialist, fascist menace; the White House disagrees."  I exaggerate, but not by much.

Bingo.

The March Of The Palinbots

Stepford

Limbaugh is thrilled that the coup against even Rove is now complete:

Let's assume that Christine O'Donnell is down in the polls, Democrat polls, by the way, by 25 points. Okay, fine. If she's the best option we have to stop what's going on once she gets to Washington, why not try to make up the 25 points? We got socialism, communism, liberalism on the ropes. It's too risky? Let me tell you something. It's worth the risk. We're talking about saving the goddamn country.

(Graphic: David Baker Design.)

Hiker Released, Ctd

A reader writes:

I am happy for Sarah Shourd and her family, and hope that she is able to get her health issues addressed quickly.  I'm sure this has been a terrible ordeal for all involved, including the families of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal. However, these three adults showed extremely poor judgment in choosing to hike in Iraq in the first place – during a war no less – and were warned specifically against hiking in the area where they eventually crossed into Iran.  The response of the Iranian government has been excessive, but is anyone surprised at this?  I have a hard time viewing them entirely as victims. 

Another writes:

This story really drives home the arrogance of a lot Americans on the world stage.

Some people feel they have the right to go anywhere they want because they are Americans – and what they want, they get. I think they feel that if they get into trouble, the U.S. government will come to their rescue. However, look at what this has done. It is an international incident with a lot of repercussions. How much influence and political capital was spent just getting this one hiker out of jail? When we travel abroad we should be respectful of other countries and their traditions.

Another:

I wish the American media would call the proverbial spade a spade.  The idea that Shourd was released on "bail" is absurd.  A release on bail conveys that the released prisoner will remain in the jurisdiction and appear for trial.  This wasn't "bail"; it was ransom.

Gary Sick puts her release in greater context:

Ahmadinejad is coming to New York for his annual media circus at the UN General Assembly. He usually pulls off some stunt just before he arrives, thereby giving himself a blaze of media attention and perhaps arming him with a talking point about Iran’s “humane” behavior. That is useful in responding to questions and charges that are sure to arise in the back-to-back “exclusive” interviews that his staff has been arranging for the past several months with every possible media outlet in New York.

Remembering Spc Alyssa Peterson

We should not forget those many Americans who did stand up against the torture of the Bush administration, did have consciences, and did resist. For Alyssa Peterson, the moral conflict of being an American torturing prisoners was too much. Seven years ago today, she killed herself. But she never killed her honor. And she and many others helped preserve what remains of the honor of the United States.