I Need To Be More Like Ta-Nehisi Coates

I'm guilty of this sometimes:: "I am a liberal. But I can not spend every single thread using whatever I'm reading as evidence for the evils of the Tea Party, or the shortcomings of Barack Obama. It just so predictable and easy. There will be more Malcolm threads this week. The lens to apply is literary, not policy. If you're only here to gather evidence for a facebook fight with your conservative or liberal relatives, do yourself a favor and have a beer while reading a Rasmussen poll."

Karzai Rails Against America

Seriously: Why are we still there?

Those Poor Elites

Slate observes: "It's sure a bad week to be an elite." No it's not. It's never, ever a bad week to be elite. That's what being elite is all about. It's only bad if you lose it.

Why NPR Will Keep Its Funding

A reader at Commentary breaks down the radio network's funding: "A lot has been written about how the network only gets a couple million from taxpayers. This is very misleading … actually wrong. CPB gives scores of millions of dollars to NPR affiliates which, in turn, use that money to purchase NPR programming such as Morning Edition, All Things Considered, etc. …"

And that's why attempts to doom NPR will probably fail. It's one thing to say you're going to yank funding from that New York-based radio network. But who wants to be the villain who pulled dollars from High Plains Public Radio? Stations out in the Oklahoma panhandle could never be self-sufficient, but they provide a valuable public service nonetheless -- and their constituents would raise holy hell if they were lost.

The Ben and Joel Podcast: Steve Hayward

This week's podcast: "Steven F. Hayward, F.K. Weyerhauser Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, historian and author of The Age of Reagan, co-author of the annual Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, and cookbook aficionado, joins Ben and Joel for a freewheeling conversation about the coming election, the environment, and U.S. foreign policy." Click on the link to download or listen.

The Guardian's Cool iPhone App

My review of The Guardian's iPhone app: "If there’s a success story to be found among “old media” institutions adapting to the Internet Era, The Guardian must be it. The venerable British newspaper has evolved nicely, expanding its audience—and its coverage—to serve U.S. readers who went online seeking alternative news sources. Now The Guardian has moved into the mobile arena, with a $4 self-titled app that ranks among the best in the news business."

More About the Tea Party and Racism

Kevin Drum points out another finding from the Washington Post study of the Tea Party: 11 percent of members contacted admitted that Obama's race, er, colored their outlook on him. Drum observes: "The taboos against admitting that race makes a difference are pretty strong, and if 11% of the tea party groups were willing to admit this in writing, it suggests that probably at least a quarter of them have similarly overt views. Maybe more. That's a helluva lot." Indeed. Wonder if this will change Jason Riley's mind about anything.