Per aspera

To this:  The Most Vulgar, Disgusting, and Foul Joke in the World

This serves as kind of an expansion/reinforcement of the last post, for me. It’s a theme Matt returns to pretty regularly, and one I completely agree with.
The mechanism by which we decide what to do is called “politics” and it exists so that individuals and organizations with somewhat divergent interests and ideas can make […]

Matt Yglesias has made this point a few times before, and I think it’s worth noting, and remembering when we hear people use “partisan” as a synonym for “bad” (and “bipartisan” for “good”).
More broadly, though, it’s unfair to Bush to blame him for the lack of the sort of “bipartisan cooperation” we saw in the […]

Rove lamented the loss of civility in politics on the web…
Oh, my sides!
(via Atrios)

Digby has a post up at the Campaign for America’s Future about right-wing postmodernism. I avoid the word conservative because “epistemic relativism,” as Digby puts it, is rather radical.
I’m not sure if it’s that we’ve become used to it or the administration has used less of it recently, but I don’t find myself pounding […]

Kevin Drum has announced the winners of the Golden Wingnut award, for the all-time wingnuttiest blogpost. N.B. that first place went to a guy who used to call himself “Hindrocket.” Since most of you don’t spend nearly as much time on the Internet as I do, you might be slightly perplexed by the […]

Also via Avedon, Jay Rockefeller, Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, lies to try to get the Get Out of Jail Free Act passed for the telecom companies who helped the Bush administration illegally spy on Americans without warrants, from its beginning (it turns out that the Bush administration - and this is true, I am not […]

Go read this post:
What Color Are the Holes in Your Parachute?
For real. If you don’t have the time now, put aside fifteen minutes later and read the whole thing.

Via Shakes:
What does our poll show about the black vote in the Democratic race?
Well, it shows that black voters respond to other things besides race.
Another white guy who thinks it’s remarkable that black people live and think, just like you and me. I always get this image in my head of them running around […]

Via Atrios, the most hopeful news I’ve heard a very long time.  Look!  Democrats who aren’t reflexively craven.  It’s like seeing a school of coelacanths.

Singer Chaka Khan embraces funk, not GOP
Q: Let’s get political briefly. In 2000, you sang at the Republican National Convention.
A: “I’m trying to forget that.”
Q: That was my question. In the intervening years, a lot of people have become disillusioned with the president the candidate and ultimately the president that emerged.
A: “Does that answer your […]

Senator Jim Webb of Virginia:

God damn. It’s like I’ve fallen through some wonderful rabbit hole, into a land populated with Democrats who are able to be rhetorically and politically effective. It’s enough to give a man hope.