Why context matters, exhibit 967b

Numbers figure prominently in this campaign. Who knows what they mean?

There are many questions about what role race will play in this November, but one way in which race always figures in elections is in the context of access at the polls. In the September 25 issue of The New York Review of Books, Andrew Hacker offers a comprehensive look at the legal decisions and […]

In remembrance of the American writer, David Foster Wallace, who died on Friday, Time offers a list of the writer’s most memorable magazine pieces. Of particularly note, “The Weasel, Twelve Monkeys And The Shrub,” written for Rolling Stone magazine about John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. In fairness to McCain, he’s not an orator and doesn’t […]

Four reasons why politicians should march bravely into enemy territory

To the pantheon of experts who have weighed in on the election, welcome Corey Ehmke, a web developer, who mined the code behind Obama’s and McCain’s websites and mused about what it all meant. While his vote will clearly go to Obama come November, his reasoning is quite amusing. Here’s an inference about preparedness based […]

CNN takes on Pentecostalism

Everybody’s talking about Sarah Palin’s change of heart on the Bridge to Nowhere, but somehow the more interesting and arguably consequential part of the story keeps getting pushed to the bottom. “What happened to the $223 million Palin is saying she said ‘No Thanks’ too?,” asks TPM’s Josh Marshall. “She kept it.” But many papers […]

There’s been plenty of buzz about Sarah Palin’s press unavailability, but now it seems that even the press corps who are supposed to be traveling with her don’t know where they’re going. Apparently the campaign still hasn’t made available Governor Palin’s schedule for the next few days, leaving some reporters wondering what’s going on. “It’s […]

For the past two weeks, in the spirit of fair, equal, and balanced media consumption, I helped myself to a nightly dose of the O’Reilly Factor, cooked up fresh and served up piping hot by Bill O’Reilly. During the broadcast on August 26, Mr. O’Reilly derided the DNC proceedings as all “contrived and bloviating.” But […]