Simon Maloy:
New York Times columnist David Brooks was once an enthusiastic backer of George W. Bush’s disastrous invasion of Iraq. He’d write columns for the Weekly Standard – the official journal of bankrupt neoconservative thought – glorifying Bush for his steely-eyed determination and tartly mocking the pansy liberals and other anti-war types who opposed Bush’s righteous exercise in nation-building and freedom-spreading. “History will allow clear judgments about which leaders and which institutions were up to the challenge posed by Saddam,” Brooks prophesied in the March 2003 column, “and which were not.”
That prediction didn’t quite pan out. Yes, the Iraq war ended up being a disaster, but contrary to Brooks’ assurance, the “clear judgments” about who was right and who was wrong about Iraq are still pending, as evidenced by the fact that so many people who got it so terribly wrong haven’t faced any real consequences.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2008—Appalachia's Last Chance to Show It Doesn't Have an Obama Problem:
I've written quite a bit about over the last few months about voting patterns in Appalachia. Beginning with Super Tuesday and then the Potomac primary, the pattern became clear: many counties of Appalachia have voted by margins of over 2 to 1, and sometimes even 9 to 1 for Hillary Clinton. It's inescapable that race is playing a factor in some voting everywhere, but that it's a much greater factor in Appalachia than anywhere else in America. Only in Appalachia has Hillary Clinton won huge margins. As I've written before, Obama does not appear to have a problem with white voters. However, Appalachia has a problem with Obama.
Last week, before the West Virginia primary, I enlisted the help of Kossack Meng Bomin to make maps that showed the counties where Obama and Clinton have posted big wins. Obama has posted big wins in overwhelmingly white counties in places across the country. Clinton has done well in many places. But her biggest margins, outside of Arkansas and a few counties in Western New York, have almost all been in the counties of Appalachia.
As was obvious to anyone who was looking at the results of the previous primaries, Clinton coasted to a huge win in West Virginia. She will again win huge tonight in Kentucky, because, as Markos showed, voters in Kentucky long ago made up their minds. Some will portray it as evidence that Obama has a problem with white voters. It won't be. Rather, it will be further evidence that Appalachia has a problem with Obama.
Tweet of the Day
Alls I'm saying is the Dixie Chicks had better information than my brother.
- former frontrunner Jeb Bush
— @LOLGOP
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show, we kicked off with a recap of the Pinterest fiasco.
Greg Dworkin walked us through his always-excellent APR, with news on Hillary &the 2016 field, David Brooks being terrible, Luis Lang quitting the Gop, and KY-GOV results. Biker menace spreads to Applebee's! Twin Peaks HQ shocked at the clientele attracted by its rogue franchise!
Joan McCarter on the looming deadlines on NSA reform, the bin Laden "treasure trove" that has appeared all of a sudden, the awful "bad intel" dodge, a new TPP-related shell game that pays for "trade adjustment assistance" out of Medicare money, and how Idaho saved kids & defeated Sharia!
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