The Shake, Rattle, Decline and Fall of American Empire

This graph is the key to everything and it will soon be a book from HarperCollins. ("Everything" means Jann Wenner, Baby Boomers, mass culture, and the death of liberal consensus and middle class stability.) [Overthinking It via Colin via Maura.]

Data Prove Stereotypes

Americans are short and fertile. The French spend all their time drinking and eating and sleeping. The Japanese work all day and never sleep. It's proven by science! More »

Congressional Repubs Win Media War

Watching the cable news, one might get the impression that Republicans aren't a completely powerless minority party. They're still opinionating like it's 2004 out there! More »

Don't Even Bother Voting

God, remember when this seemed like another tossup? All the "insiders" say this one's Obama's. Smart Republicans are looking for good 2012 candidates. Over at InTrade, traders are betting heavily on an Obama victory. As you can see, after an odd September dip (one that wasn't relfected in other market prediction sites), Obama's up to nearly 74. [InTrade]

Bittergate's Toll

Last week (or a century ago), Barack Obama got in a bunch of trouble for making a "gaffe", which is a inside joke/cliche word political journalists use when a candidate accidentally (and inelegantly) says something he or she actually believes, and then the journalists beat up on the candidate for a month or so over it. His gaffe was that he said white blue-collar people seek solace in cultural identifiers like religion and guns when the economy fails them. Regardless of whether you find that to be a condescending notion, it seems harder to argue with his statement that these voters are "bitter," because everyone in America is "bitter" these days. Still, it became known as "bittergate," and it topped the headlines last week just as Hillary's snipergate did the week before. Obama is an elitist, we were told, over and over and over again. Elitist! And latte-sipping! Someone (Dowd?) probably called him "effete," too. After a full week of hammering this point home, that Obama is elitist, Hillary pulled ahead of Obama in the national polls for the first time in months, finally. She pulled ahead one point, on Saturday. And on Sunday, Obama was back ahead by 2. Pennsylvania's primaries are tomorrow (FINALLY THANK JESUS) but they won't solve this horrible horrible mess. More »