Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up
Saturday punditry.
More specifically, for tea party supporters, those abnormal views in every case but one or maybe two reflect higher expressed levels of racism, xenophobia, and homophobia. Some commenters wondered if TP approval is merely a proxy term for "white conservatives," and vice versa for disapprovers/"white liberals." However, in detailed multivariate results that control for ideology which Dr. Parker assured me by email he will soon publish in detail on the WISER website, tea party approval or disapproval is not simply a proxy for these labels, and does in fact have independent explanatory power of the level of intolerance expressed by whites. In any case, the idea that the recent Gallup demographic study "proves" that the views of tea partier supporters are "mainstream" is, it's fair to say, a fiction.
I stopped by Freedom Plaza on Tax Day to check on the progress of the nation's populist revolt.
On the stage, I saw the great populist leader himself: Grover Norquist, who, after getting two Harvard degrees, developed his common-touch lobbying for the tropical island paradise of the Seychelles. Norquist spoke from a lectern bearing a Tea Party emblem and a simple message: "The people speak."
Kathleen Parker (2010 Pulitzer prize winner):
Is the political environment becoming so toxic that we could see another Timothy McVeigh emerge?
No one knows the answer, but fears that anger could escalate into action beyond the ballot box are not misplaced. Ninety-nine percent of angry Americans might be perfectly satisfied to rail at their television sets -- or to show up at a Tea Party rally -- but it takes only one.
A new New York Times poll shows Tea Partiers are grumpy, older, well-off Americans who think white people are oppressed — in other words, Republicans.
This has been a media theme all week. It's beginning to dawn on our pack animal friends in the media that there's less "there" there to the Tea Party than Fox would have you believe, and the usual Republican elite (see Dick Armey and FreedomWorks) is funding the faux populist show. But it's so much more interesting to cover the tea party than to cover <yawn> issues or fact-check Michele Bachmann, like noting that (hard facts) Americans are suffering under the lowest tax rate in 60 years, 98% of Americans got a tax break this year, most Americans think their taxes are fair, etc... because, y'know the tea party is all about taxes and not about the black Democrat in the WH.
The demand for [high school basketball pheenom Josh] Selby has increased throughout the protracted recruiting process. With legs that double as trampolines, Selby has attacked the rim with ferocity while bouncing around to three high schools in four years. He originally committed to Tennessee but then in July chose to reopen the competition, which now includes a host of blue-chip programs: Kansas, Kentucky, Connecticut and Arizona.
On Saturday night, Selby’s whirlwind journey will finally come to an end when he announces his decision in his characteristically outsize way, on national television during the Jordan Brand Classic at Madison Square Garden.
What's wrong with this picture? The kid's in high school.
The Obama administration and congressional Democrats are using the Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit accusing Goldman Sachs Group Inc. of derivatives-linked fraud to bolster their case for overhauling financial-industry regulations.
After successfully shepherding his healthcare overhaul through Congress, Obama is now pushing hard for a legislative victory on financial regulatory reform, a popular issue with voters ahead of congressional elections in November.
The Senate is expected to vote within weeks on the reform bill, which Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address would "hold Wall Street accountable" and put in place rules to ensure U.S. taxpayers would never again be called upon to bail out companies in financial trouble.
"Never again will taxpayers be on the hook because a financial company is deemed 'too big to fail'," Obama said.
Never? "You keep using that word. I don not think it means what you think it means." - Inigo Montoya
I don’t know how you’re spending your spring, but here in New York we are all busy waiting for Andrew Cuomo.
Andrew! Soon he will come forward and agree to be nominated for governor. And then he will walk among us, and speak to us. And perhaps even tell us how he would balance the budget.
And New Yorkers will all live happily ever after.
Why? Does that mean the Yankees will win the Series again?
Posted: 2010-04-17 08:35:01
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