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Eric Alterman Warns: Pundits and Partisans Are Up to Old Tricks in Iraq
(Top left-clockwise) Paul Bremer; Bill O'Reilly with Charles Krauthammer; Paul Wolfowitz and Bill Kristol. In a column entitled “Bush’s toxic legacy in Iraq,” terrorism expert Peter Bergen writes about...
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How the Media Gave Carly Fiorina a Free Pass to Lie About Planned Parenthood
This post first appeared at The Nation blog. Carly Fiorina and Roger Ailes.You may have heard that Carly Fiorina won the September 16 CNN debate and has since entered the “top tier” of Republican...
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Mark Zuckerberg’s Dilemma With Conservatives
For one of the wealthiest people on the planet, Mark Zuckerberg sure is an easy mark. I don’t mean financially. I’m sure the guy gets good advice on how and where to store his billions (and billions)....
View ArticleWhat’s on Display in Cleveland? The Republican Id
What is on display at the RNC in Cleveland is the Republican id. We always suspected it would look something like this. But even though it reared its ugly head on occasion on Fox News or in Congress —...
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Convention Dissent: There’s Less Than Meets the Eye
We’ve asked historian and author Eric Alterman to watch the national party conventions and share his reactions with us in a series of blog posts. Cast your memory back exactly eight years, to the...
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Bipartisanship is Dead in the Age of Nonsense
We’ve asked historian and author Eric Alterman to watch the national party conventions and share his reactions with us in a series of blog posts. Pundits have long been bemoaning what has come to be...
View ArticleThe Audacity of Hope and Hacks
We’ve asked historian and author Eric Alterman to watch the national party conventions and share his reactions with us in a series of blog posts. First things first. Donald Trump’s statement: “Russia,...
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‘Smile, You’ve Just Had a Big Night’
We’ve asked historian and author Eric Alterman to watch the national party conventions and share his reactions with us in a series of blog posts. Among Hillary Clinton’s myriad accomplishments to...
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Who’s Behind the Right-Wing Assault on Public Universities?
This post originally appeared at The Nation. The conservative movement in the United States has long been wary of higher education. This is understandable given the fact that survey after survey...
View Article‘Normalizing’ Trump
This post originally appeared at The Nation. Harry Enten of Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com titled a recent post “The More ‘Normal’ Trump Can Make This Race, the Better His Chances.” This is...
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First Presidential Debate: The GOP Was MIA
The big surprise in last night’s debate was not what was said and done but what was not. Should it have surprised any close observer of the two candidates during the past year that Donald Trump is a...
View ArticleVice-President Debate: Too Long, Didn’t Watch
Allow me to admit up front that, like the vast majority of my fellow Americans, I did not watch the vice-presidential debate in real time last night. I went to a concert — the Tedeschi Trucks Band...
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The Third Debate: When Trump Goes Low, the Media Go Lower
It’s hard to put one’s finger on what has been most depressing about the presidential election campaign we’ve witnessed. Obviously, the central problem is that Republicans somehow nominated Donald...
View ArticleAmerica Now Has (at Least) 9,999 Problems
When I wrote this piece, “The Hole in Obama’s Legacy,” for The New Yorker back in August, I did not, even briefly, imagine that Obama’s failure to reach the white working class would lead to a Trump...
View ArticleAn Actual American War Criminal May Become Our Second-Ranking Diplomat
This post originally appeared at The Nation. It may seem small in the saga of President Trump’s first two weeks, but according to The Washington Post, there’s a good chance he’ll appoint an actual war...
View ArticleThe Media’s Addiction to False Equivalencies Has Left Them Vulnerable to Trump
This post originally appeared at The Nation. To merely make it through the day with one’s sanity intact is no small task during Donald Trump’s presidency. There are so many moving targets, and they...
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Trump for Young Readers
The New York Times recently ran a peculiarly pathetic article about yet another victim of the Trump administration that you probably never thought to worry about: the children’s publishing industry....
View ArticleAlex Jones Is a Practiced Swindler — Just Like His Biggest Fan
This post originally appeared at The Nation. Somebody is “putting chemicals in the water that turn the frickin’ frogs gay.” The Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax perpetrated by a group of pro-gun-control...
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Trump’s Allies Are Taking Over the Media and Creating Their Own Reality
This post originally appeared at The Nation. On July 17, the Idaho television station KBOI tweeted a story about a would-be robber who allegedly “arrives early at banks to find doors locked.” Even more...
View ArticleThe World of Cable News Is Trump’s Reality
This post originally appeared at The Nation. Like Waylon Jennings, cable news has always been crazy. CNN, after all, was founded by Ted Turner. (Sample wisdom: “Castro’s not a communist. He’s like me—a...
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