The Wednesday Curator – 12/10/14

December 9, 2014

Wednesday again! Here goes:

Conservative pundits might like Obama more if he really were a caudillo, by Matthew Yglesias for Vox on November 24, nails the hypocrisy attendant to calling President Obama a tyrant, a dictator, or a king. The Republican Party has, for a century or more, aligned itself with executive power, whether in the United States, Central America, or elsewhere. Alas, it seems evident that it’s only their executive power which they favor.

I read Eric Lipton’s major exposé, Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance with Attorneys General, in the December 7 Sunday New York Times. Attorneys general are elected officials, but they are elected to be the attorney for the state. They should not be policy

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The Wednesday Curator – 11/26/14

November 25, 2014

Last Wednesday morning, Mike Nichols died. An amazing talent left behind a loving wife and family, together with a truly amazing body of work. Here’s the New York Times obituary by Bruce Weber, along with Remembering ‘Comic Meteor’ Mike Nichols by Scott Simon for Morning Edition Saturday on NPR.

The Talk of the Town lead column in the November 17 issue featured Steve Coll, with Two More Years. Mr. Coll is a great, great reporter (and the dean of the Columbia Journalism School), and the author of Ghost Wars:  The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. Alas, for any reporter timing counts, and Mr. Coll’s piece

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Our Shrunken Congress!

November 20, 2014

We’re here to talk shrinkage, “the act or process of shrinking.” Now, nothing explains shrinkage better than this exchange from a well-loved sitcom. (Laughing yet? If not, you didn’t click on the link.)

I read The Extraordinary Smallness of Washington—the subtitle is Institutional Shrinkage Marks the Politics and Governing of the Bush-Obama Era—in The National Journal on Tuesday. (The subtitle sent me to shrinkage.) Ron Fournier, the author of the short piece, sums up his premise in his fourth sentence:  This is an era of titanic challenges and tiny politics.

I wonder—and worry—often about our having what it takes to solve our problems. So does Mr. Fournier, who singles out immigration, energy/global warming, taxes and spending, the economy,

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