Washington Diarist | The New Republic

Washington Diarist | The New Republic: "For a start, there are no unreal people. Even Mitch McConnell is real. Even Frank Rich is real. The invocation of “the people” sounds inclusive, but it is a technique of exclusion. (This was also the case in the preamble to the Constitution.) It is based upon a particular definition of “the people.” How do Palin and the partiers know who the real Americans are? The mystical certainty of her divisive intuition reminds me of what intellectual historians used to call the “epistemological privilege” of Marx’s proletariat, his reprehensible old idea that access to truth is a feature of class position."

book notes

Game Change by John Heilemann, Mark Halperin

When McCain called up Bush to to ask for a White House meeting on the financial crisis that included McCain and Obama, Bush was against it saying it would introduce partisan politics into the crisis. McCain than went on TV to say he called for a White House meeting.

In Biden's debate prep, the fake Palin practiced first with a fake Biden before practicing with the real Biden.

Hitchens notes

The most extreme nationalists are people from the periphery:

Napoleon -- Corsica
Hilter -- Austria
Alexander -- Macedonia
Irish Republicans -- Northern Ireland
Karadzic -- Bosnia

Video of Mike Wallace 1967 report on The Homosexuals

President rankings

Federalist Society - The Wall Street Journal Survey on Presidents


RANK NAME MEAN
GREAT
1 George Washington 4.92
2 Abraham Lincoln 4.87
3 Franklin Roosevelt 4.67
NEAR GREAT
4 Thomas Jefferson 4.25
5 Theodore Roosevelt 4.22
6 Andrew Jackson 3.99
7 Harry Truman 3.95
8 Ronald Reagan 3.81
9 Dwight Eisenhower 3.71
10 James Polk 3.70
11 Woodrow Wilson 3.68
ABOVE AVERAGE
12 Grover Cleveland 3.36
13 John Adams 3.36
14 William McKinley 3.33
15 James Madison 3.29
16 James Monroe 3.27
17 Lyndon Johnson 3.21
18 John Kennedy 3.17
AVERAGE
19 William Taft 3.00
20 John Quincy Adams 2.93
21 George Bush 2.92
22 Rutherford Hayes 2.79
23 Martin Van Buren 2.77
24 William Clinton 2.77
25 Calvin Coolidge 2.71
26 Chester Arthur 2.71
BELOW AVERAGE
27 Benjamin Harrison 2.62
28 Gerald Ford 2.59
29 Herbert Hoover 2.53
30 Jimmy Carter 2.47
31 Zachary Taylor 2.40
32 Ulysses Grant 2.28
33 Richard Nixon 2.22
34 John Tyler 2.03
35 Millard Fillmore 1.91
FAILURE
36 Andrew Johnson 1.65
37 Franklin Pierce 1.58
38 Warren Harding 1.58
39 James Buchanan 1.33

President Obama�has proposed�the largest defense budget since World War II. - By Fred Kaplan - Slate Magazine

President Obama�has proposed�the largest defense budget since World War II. - By Fred Kaplan - Slate Magazine: "Still, $708.2 billion, the sum requested just for fiscal year 2011, is an extraordinary chunk of change. The Center for a New American Security (hardly a dovish think tank) calculates that, adjusting for inflation, this sum is 13 percent higher than the defense budget at the peak of the Korean War, 33 percent higher than at the peak of the Vietnam War, 23 percent higher than at the peak of the Cold War, and 64 percent higher than the Cold War's average."

Dan Choi -- gays in the military

Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord - NYTimes.com

Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord - NYTimes.com: "Others, noting that other equally popular tunes have not provoked killings, point to the song itself. The lyrics, written by Paul Anka for Mr. Sinatra as an unapologetic summing up of his career, are about a tough guy who “when there was doubt,” simply “ate it up and spit it out.” Butch Albarracin, the owner of Center for Pop, a Manila-based singing school that has propelled the careers of many famous singers, was partial to what he called the “existential explanation.”

“�‘I did it my way’ — it’s so arrogant,” Mr. Albarracin said. “The lyrics evoke feelings of pride and arrogance in the singer, as if you’re somebody when you’re really nobody. It covers up your failures. That’s why it leads to fights.”"

magazine notes

John Mayer in Rolling Stone says that he can't have sex dreams without intrusion in the dreams by paparazzi.

Soldier father accused of 'waterboarding' daughter, 4, because she can't recite alphabet | Mail Online

Soldier father accused of 'waterboarding' daughter, 4, because she can't recite alphabet
| Mail Online: "Tabor, a soldier at the Lewis-McChord base in Tacoma, Washington, was arrested after being seen walking around his neighbourhood wearing a Kevlar military helmet and threatening to break windows."