So we do pay attention to your concerns, or try to, about technical matters and the troll problem, as well as spam comments, which are more of a problem on other Time blogs. I forwarded Trifecta’s Terrapin (sorry! T names!) plea from the last comment thread to our guide to blog matters, and he responded:
Spam-blocking improvements are
…
In the ArenaUncategorized
Greg Sargent over at TPM has the transcript of remarks Barack Obama just made slamming Hillary Clinton, a continuation of the tiff that began during Monday night’s Youtube debate.
So, reality check: Substantively, this isn’t about very much at all. Both candidates would go about–finally!–talking to the rogue states in the same way: …
The Obama campaign is pushing back hard against initial reports that Obama yesterday touted his foreign policy expertise as being the best of any candidate, in either party. Obama’s people contend that the junior senator from Illinois was referring to his life experience, as someone who’s both lived overseas and had family in foreign …
In the ArenaUncategorized
My colleague Mark Halperin tells me that CNN has taken the clever step of getting the Florida Republican Party and Governor Charlie Crist to co-sponsor the CNN/YouTube Republican debate…Which will make it hard for the candidates to chicken out. Can’t wait.
In the ArenaUncategorized
Small Wars Journal and assorted military bloggers are reporting that H.R. McMaster, one of the smartest and most creative colonels in the U.S. Army, has been passed over for promotion to brigadier general–a second time, I’m told by friends of the colonel. McMaster, who wrote an excellent book about the U.S. Army’s failure in Vietnam, …
In the ArenaUncategorized
Some interesting speculation from Iraqslogger about what else besides shouting happened at yesterday’s U.S.-Iran meeting.
A joint US-Iraq-Iran effort to deal with Al Qaeda would be good news, even if it is ineffective, as it will likely be. Clearly, the U.S. wants to do some horse-trading with the five Iranian agents we seized in Erbil …
In the ArenaUncategorized
This item about the President’s YouTube allergy started me thinking….
Given the generally irreverent and, well, liberal tone of the questions last night–and the general skew of the YouTube audience leeward, do you think it’s possible that some of the Republican candidates are having second thoughts about participating in their …
The arguments made in the New York Times today by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, former Clinton NSC officials, about the Pentagon’s bureaucratic incapacity to plan and execute small-scale anti-terrorist operations is persuasive enough. As the two of them note, despite the fact that the Special Operations Command budget has ballooned …
In the ArenaUncategorized
Well, I had doubts about it…but the youtube format was pretty good. The informality and the irreverence of questions was classicly American. The answer to Drudge’s mocking headline “Is This Any Way to Elect A President?” is:
Hell, yeah. It’s a lot better than electing a President by having the Democratic candidate slimed via sleazy …
Where I’m not:
7:00 PM: That man’s facial hair does not represent my view.
7:01 PM: “We’re not sure how this is going to work,” says Anderson. CNN, your home for breaking news.
7:02 PM: Using kids to ask “adult questions” — I believe that’s someone on the Giuliani campaign’s job.
7:04 PM: FIRST QUESTION. “The issues don’t matter …
In the ArenaUncategorized
Make impeachment an issue over the next 18 months…Including the impeachment of Nancy Pelosi!
Allow the Jacobin–off with their heads!–wing of the party to control the agenda. Keep calling for votes on Iraq that will fail. Don’t call for votes on Iraq that might succeed (like the Salazar-Alexander Amendment).
Even though the …
In the ArenaUncategorized
Produce a Congressional agenda–like the Senate’s bipartisan children’s health coverage expansion–and allow the President to veto it.
Produce other bipartisan bills–like the Salazar-Alexander amendment to incorporate the findings of the Iraq Study Group–that the President will also veto. I suspect there’s a bipartisan energy …
Just in time for the resignation of “Trooper” Garrity, WikiHow’s How-to of the Day!
How to Make a Citizen’s Arrest
In many countries around the world, civilians are empowered to stop a perpetrator in the act of a serious crime and take the arrested to a courthouse or police station, or keep them from leaving until an officer of the law
…
