Blogs and Pieces

Enough about the “Snowmaggedon” already:

• At the Atlantic, Michael Kinsley makes a great point about the difference between condescension and simply, you know, believing you’re right. Marc Aminder, meanwhile, breaks down Sarah Palin’s paradigm, which is basically appearing as a victim of condescendsion. Imagine that.
• At ThinkProgress, Matt Yglesias throws some cold water on the popularity of the Tea Party movement and tears to pieces Marc Thiessen’s gross dissembling on torture. Thiessen’s angry response is laughable.
• Nate Silver, writing at FiveThirtyEight, proves a point that can’t be made often enough: Obama’s policies have, on the whole, been more popular that not. “[T]he votes taken by the Republican Congress have far more often been out of step with those of the median voter.”
• In New York politics, uncertainty abounds. Governor David Paterson will resign very soon, or he won’t. Hiram Monserrate, who probably slashed his girlfriend’s face with broken glass, may finally be expelled from the State Senate, or not.
• Hipster puppies!

Quick Rudy Update!

What a great way to follow up yesterday’s post! The big political news coming out of New York today is that Rudy Giuliani is not running for Governor of New York in 2010 as was previously speculated. Instead, sources tell the New York Daily News that Giuliani will run for Hillary Clinton’s old Senate seat, to which Governor Paterson famously appointed Kristen Gillibrand earlier this year. This would set him up better for a possible 2012 Presidential run—oh, if wishing made it so!—since New York state is pretty much ungovernable right now.

This is all good and juicy, but more important than the politics, doesn’t this just feel right?

After all, the primary job of a US Senator is to be a hugely pompous blowhard. Who better than Rudy?