Pointless decisions... the auto-bush-ography

Not quite as awesome of Mr. Fish's take on W, but it's a bit edgier than Hannity's pick-up truck interview with the former POTUS.

Rand Paul in DC -- 'That's all, folks'

'We've come to take back our government'.... but who is the 'we'?!

Unusal business on the high seas

'a veces digo algo tan inoportuno solo por tener algo que decer'

On Israel/Palestine, What Does "Unwavering" Mean?

Obama in Cairo...

This is up on HuffPo's front page at the mo: 

On Wednesday evening, Obama confidente and White House Senior Advisor for Public Outreach Valerie Jarrett held a conference call with progressives around the country who may have been disheartened by Tuesday's election results. It was a brave thing for her to do as many in the progressive community have felt ignored and abused as the White House in policies ranging from the health care public option, to carbon limits, to Don't Ask Don't Tell, and so on.

One of my New America Foundation colleagues, Jonathan Guyer, who happens to be the official cartoonist of The Washington Note, asked Jarrett where the President stood on Israel/Palestine.

As reported by JTA's Ron Kampeas, Jarrett responded:

"The president has made it very clear that he is committed to doing whatever he can to foster talks in the Middle East - that's unwavering," Valerie Jarrett, Obama's senior adviser for public engagement, said in a conference call Wednesday with a broad array of special interest groups, including Jewish groups. "That's not a partisan issue; his commitment to that is unwavering." 

Sketchbook: Sculpted

 

A beautiful ink rendering by Comrade Cameron Healy.
Note to readers: mideastXmidwest is not that good of an artist.

If Jonathan Guyer is wrong, I don't want to be right

A "rebuttal" on Foreign Policy to my Mideast Channel analysis piece on Palestinians and social media is now online.

One particularly delicious line from Schanzer of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD):

Guyer begins with an inaccuracy of his own: "The last time you visited your favorite blog, how wide of a cross-section of public opinion did the comments represent? It probably depended on the blogger, on the article, and on the mood of the day."

This is simply wrong. Take the online environment in the United States. Politically active bloggers support the Tea Party or MoveOn.org, depending on whether they lean right or left. Few can be classified as neutral. Accordingly, content is usually driven by ideology, not mood.

 And indeed, FDD seems to be driven by ideology as well.

Housebroken on the third of November

An oldie from November 2006 that might have some relevance for today's dreary day. 

Let me know when you'all find the silver lining.

Call me disenfranchised-- I'm just stateless

 

Also published at The Washington Note.

Rally to Restore Rallying

Forget the apolitical pundits rallying to restore a hypothetical sanity and/or fear that never existed in the first place. Here's a doodle of some of the nation's finest "Tea Partiers," defending their own sanity, last March while the soon to be lame-ducked Congress passed ye ol' healthcare reform bill. 

As for this weekend's rally, well... I slept through it...