I'ts odd, and a bit disorienting, to hear the revealingly faux tough-guy talk of ass-kicking, used to justify, rather than condemn, Israel's use of aerial sledge hammers to squash imprisoned mosquitos. Ever since Vietnam, air power has been used by countries like Israel and the US, who are willing to waste enormous resources on military hardware, but too squeamish to take casualties themselves. They also don't give a rat's ass what happens on the ground.

Maybe I'm missing something, but is that what you call toughness? It's like saying "My dad can beat up your dad," when your dad is a linebacker and the other guy's dad is a 5'2" paraplegic. And equally brave and mature.

Sadly, the Great American Hypocrites live on, but in increasingly infantilized form,thumping their tiny fists on their man-boobs, calling everybody a sissy, while real blood is spilling in real streets comfortably far away.

Lord, let me pour myself something.

Rocky, based on a brief perusal of your list of "biases," the way in which they were presented, and your evidently feeble grasp on the English language in the practice of expository writing, it is difficult for me to believe you have been acquainted with professors of any discipline, least of all journalism. Unless perhaps you mop floors at a college.

Your brilliant ideas and charming manner are a delight, just not in the manner you would like.

Unfortunately, when the NYT is confronted with the riveting and disgraceful demise of a loathed right-wing administration, its response is self-flagellation, hand-wringing, and hiring one of the otherwise unemployable leftovers to pollute its Op/Ed page. I don't know why that is.

Last time, it was Safire, and that unctuous gangster lasted for decades, because it turned out he could write. We have inbreeding and nepotism to thank for the cretinism that has seized the entirety of the right's "intelligentsia" and eliminated the risk of Kristol lasting that long at the NYT, because the audience with sufficient senile dementia to tolerate him is over at Fox, with bibs on. Too bad the Sulzbergers copped onto this demographic detail a little late.

Maybe they're waiting for Tom Friedman's kids to step in....

RMP? Cocktails? You? Perish the thought.

RMP.... Thanks for the link(s). While I was pleased to see the, uh, peerless Bill Kristol at the top, the utterly improbable and laughably wrong prediction listed would barely crack his own top ten. Each day I pray for his removal from the NYT, but on some level I applaud his television appearances because they are so reliably discrediting to him and his ilk.

Jon Stewart said it best, "Is he ever right?" Sadly, such a record is a prerequisite, rather than a disqualifier, for bloviating on the air.

Bystander, I'm afraid it's not just one other blog that attracts inferior comments, but rather almost all of them. Never have I ventured into a comment section of any mainstream outlet, print or broadcast, and not been horrified at not just the poor grammar, spelling, and reading comprehension, but also the snarling bellicosity that is the enemy of rational discourse.

We are indeed spoiled here at UT, where even the lowest troll can string together a sentence, and some are quite fluent. Few blurt without thinking, and fewer without reading. I can think of a half dozen other places where this is the rule.

Sysprog.... Thanks for a chilling read.

PS. RMP has the link, but anyone interested should take a look at a Danny Miller piece up at Huffpo, "Eartha Kitt, CIA Target." A fascinating story about a kick-ass Cocktailhag, making Lady Bird Johnson cry and being dogged by spooks for years because of it. Plus ca change.....

I have come to loathe the repetitive year-end ritual of self-aggrandizement for mediocrity that rears its head, Putin-like (h/t, Sarah!) each year at this time, in the form of "top ten" lists.

What could be more nausea-inducing than to have thrown in one's face the mass idiocy, poor taste, and shallowness of the dreadful year past? Whether music, books, movies, or politics, it's nothing more than an arrogant nose-rubbing in the mess the media left on the carpet, wherein the roles of the dog and master are cruelly reversed at the end.

It would, indeed, be funny, if it weren't so sad, and unfortunately a rerun. Churchill described Clement Atlee as "a modest man, with much to be modest about." Would that our media had a bit more of the former, and less of the latter.

Rrheard.... There has been a sprinkling of rain, so far no hint of any more of that annoying white crap here on Park Ave. But at this point nothing would surprise me. I'm going to LA next week.

I also thought the accusation of humorlessness on Glenn's part was, well, humorous. Heaven knows I've sprayed all manner of beverages in all manner of directions reading his, admittedly often deadpan, comments. It is another dose of projection, as nearly as I can see, as both Drezner and Cohen only were able to keep me from nodding off by saying yet another astonishingly naive and/or dumb thing... even on tape rather than in print.

I think that clown noses, juggling, and knock knock jokes are a presence in this discussion, they're just being employed by our not-so-humble professors.

And along comes Glenn with his seltzer bottle, with predictable results.

Well, Dirigo, I personally don't have a sex joke for every occasion, but I have a friend who does; maybe you know her. I do have one every so often, though, only because of what I've gleaned from literature. For this reason, I look forward to RMP's no doubt edifying anthropological photographic studies of 20-foot pink plastic boners. Maybe my friend will come up with a good joke out of it.