Liberal Talk Radio

If we can recast public financing of healthcare as a way to starve the rest of the beast, as Bob Packwood* sort of argues (if you squint) then there might be an opening to finally see it happen: So Americans have a choice. We can spend 40 percent of our G.D.P., and provide services like [...]

A disclaimer: Although I don’t live in Seattle, and BATP is of course a Seattle-based production, I love Seattle and have visited many times. Some of my best friends live in Seattle! Which is to say, I don’t necessarily understand all of the ins and outs of the demise of the Post-Intelligencer beyond what I [...]

Old people shoot Crown Royal. Young people shoot three-pointers. Myself, I enjoy a mean game of catch and a microbrew; maybe I’m becoming a “moderate.”

Would Barney Frank ever have been able to talk about regulating the banking sector had it not been for Bush’s Bear Stearns bailout? That’s why Bush may be the most progressive-liberal president since, uh, Jimmy Carter. (Sorry, Bill!) Unconvinced? What about John McCain running around Europe pandering about Kyoto and torture and “reestablishing diplomacy”? Karl [...]

As recently as this fall, Rudy Giuliani ranked highly in both nationwide and state polls. Now, it’s gotten so bad that even people in the tri-state area are wondering about his chances: For months, the Republican establishment in New York and New Jersey marched nearly in lock step behind Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former hometown [...]

I’m going to come out and say it — America is starting to remind me of Britain in the ’70s (or, what I’ve read of it, anyway). Your country and mine currently features: * A dysfunctional economy, characterized by almost schizophrenic swings in the stock market (stock market down 300 pts so far today) * [...]

Good op-ed in the Times this weekend on reforming the farm bill. The farm bill is one of those famous pieces of pork(!) that no one likes except big agriculture. It’s a travesty, but — and this is the ultra-cynic in me coming out — it will never get any attention so long as Archer [...]

Nicholas Kristof argues against Hillary Clinton based on an aversion to “political dynasties”: If Mrs. Clinton were elected and served two terms, then for seven consecutive presidential terms the White House would have been in the hands of just two families. That’s just not the kind of equal-opportunity democracy we aspire to. Maybe we can’t [...]

If you’re a conservative, I guess nothing gets you as riled up as the prospect of a woman and a black man running the country (and, presumably, sleeping together at the same time — those damn liberals and their non-traditional values!). The Bug Meister himself, Mr. Tom “Would You Like Some Dioxin and Scandal with [...]

Mikhail Gorbachev — aka “the Birthmark that Lost the Cold War” — makes a point I’ve been shouting about for years: namely, that the US squandered its post-Cold War opportunity. [Gorbachev] said the United States and other Western countries had missed an opportunity to make the world a better place after the fall of the [...]