Inexact Possibilities: Politics at the Cutting Edge
Why I Am Not A Conservative
A major topic of this blog since its inception has been the vacuous, uninformed nature of right-wing political discourse. I bemoan this fact because I believe in a robust dialogue, and as a temperament I believe conservatism has much to offer our politics. But what passes for conservatism these days is, in my opinion, a mostly content-free ideology. It’s nice to have this confirmed on my own blog.
A reader named Karl Keller has been commenting, quite passionately, on a few recent posts. I don’t know who Karl Keller is or anything about him, but since I want to take my readers’ dissents seriously, I thought his comments deserve a detailed response, which I try to make after the jump.
Decision 2009
Tomorrow is election day here in America, although with 2009 being an odd-numbered year there are only a few important races. Here’s a primer of the races likely to make headlines: the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections, a special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional district that’s drawn lots of press, and gay rights ballot initiatives in Maine and Washington state.
Oh yeah, and there’s a mayoral election right here in New York City. I wonder who will win?
Is There a Liberal Movement?
I rarely make it past Politico’s headlines—the site’s zero-sum view of politics and relentless hyping of partisan gamesmanship is often laughable—but the other day a subhead in my RSS reader caught my eye: “He also calls Obama a ‘movement liberal.’”
Now, I don’t really care about achingly dull Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who was being interviewed by Newsmax (yet another cauldron of empty rhetoric in the conservative echo chamber). What does interest me is his formulation: Obama as a “movement liberal.”
What on Earth is a “movement liberal?” (more…)