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It looks like there was a big plan in the works by the tea party and the GOP to purge voters from the rolls in Wisconsin. The state GOP now says the plan has been shelved. Ryan Reilly takes a look at the details of the plan.
An odd exchange on Fox News a short time ago. I know. That never happens, right? But this one has me really confused. Genuinely. Read More
In response to the Christine O’Donnell hair question, raised earlier (in jest), comes this striking analysis of her image strategy, from TPM Reader HF:
Here’s what I think.
The bangs in the ad released October 4 look pretty freshly cut, probably to give her a plainer, more girlish look and possibly specifically for making this ad. Her hair is parted just off-center and straight back to the crown. (Usually she parts it farther off to the right with a zig zag and does a bit of a 60’s, Jackie Kennedy type bang.) The hair on the right is probably longer, which is why much of it is tucked back behind her ear for the ad. Most of her hair is probably pulled back out of the way, as the goal here is to make her hair look as thin, straight and unattractive as possible. It looks like her hair has been flattened with a straightening iron and an oily product to make it very smooth and straight. It falls from a bit of a natural cowlick, so it looks like it was combed and air-dried rather than blown out. All in search of the “I just got out of English class and what’s all this about witchcraft?” look.
I have a favor to ask. I’m looking for a good history of the 9/11 attacks. What’s the best one around?
I ask because I was just online and had to look up a detail about the attacks. So I went to the Wikipedia page on the attacks. And as they often are, you have this big, systematic, fairly dispassionate account with just a mass of details. And even though I remember the attacks, did a fair amount of reporting on them in the days, months and years after and have been, in various ways, writing and thinking about them for years, I realized that enough time has now gone by (about 9 years) that it’s becoming recognizable to me as history. And I wanted to read it all together again, as history.
Now, there are a slew of books on the attacks. Plenty of the ‘radical Islam is going to kill us all’ variety; and others of the ‘it’s all George Bush’s fault’ variety. Then there are first person accounts, tell-alls. But none of those are what I’m interested in. I’m looking for a good factually-grounded narrative history of the attacks, their background, execution and probably something on the aftermath as well. As much as is possible in these matters I’m not looking for one with an overly strong thesis, especially not a political one. I’m looking for a good narrative description of what happened.
I’ve probably seen a dozen of these books come across my desk as review copies or at book stores or in reviews over the years. But I can’t recall a lot of specific ones now and I never new which were the best. So, again, a favor. Which should I pick up?
Earlier today I said in a couple posts that I wasn’t sure if President Obama had it in him to fire Gen. McChrystal. And then I wrote at the end of my afternoon post …
And yet, as I said a few moments ago, I’m not sure I thought he had it in him. But he did. I’ve learned something.
A number of you have written in to ask what the hell I was saying or what I meant. So I thought I’d expand briefly on what I said. Read More
