Washington Monthly

At the Democratic convention, Bill Clinton accused Republicans of fabricating a “cartoon alternative” to the real Hillary Clinton. The Washington Monthly’s Martin Longman claims that Democrats don’t need to create cartoon versions of conservatives since there’s already “something cartoonish about the right,” and in that regard Donald Trump “seems like a natural successor” to Sarah Palin and (wait…

Many liberals are certain that a Donald Trump presidency would be an unprecedented fiasco, but The Washington Monthly’s D.R. Tucker isn’t among them. In a Sunday post, Tucker suggested that in terms of racism and overall “incompetence,” a Trump administration would be a sort of sequel to George W. Bush’s, and speculated that Republicans who are backing Hillary Clinton may be, “on a very subtle…

There’s a famous line attributed to Henry Kissinger about the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s: “It's a pity they can't both lose.” Left-wing Washington Monthly blogger David Atkins adapted Kissinger’s quip for his Tuesday post about whether “vicious, ignorant megalomaniac” Donald Trump is “more contemptible” than “steely-eyed devotee of Ayn Rand” Paul Ryan.

In a few months, Barack Obama will become the fifth post-World War II president to serve two full terms. The Washington Monthly’s Martin Longman thinks Obama tops the other four in terms of “popularity and moral credibility,” as indicated not only by the positive reception Obama got for his Wednesday-night DNC speech boosting Hillary Clinton, but by the public’s curiosity beforehand about what he…

One of NewsBusters’ most prominent readers, Rush Limbaugh, gave us a shout-out Monday during his radio program as he reflected on his success and longevity (next Monday, The Rush Limbaugh Show marks its 28th anniversary in national syndication). Limbaugh discussed a Sunday NB post which centered on a Washington Monthly blogger’s allegations that he has left a “sick stain” and a “loathsome legacy…

Paul Krugman claimed recently that the Republican party “went over the edge…when supply-side economics became [its] official doctrine.” The Washington Monthly’s D.R. Tucker reveres Krugman, but he has a different choice for “the moment when the GOP truly lost it”: August 1, 1988, when Rush Limbaugh’s radio show went national. Tucker argued that Limbaugh has "removed all traces of logic, reason,…

The police and Black Lives Matter may seem like strange bedfellows, but that’s not the case, claims longtime journalist Steven Waldman. In fact, Waldman thinks the two should join forces against “the most anti-police organization in America”: the National Rifle Association. “Both police and African Americans feel under siege,” wrote Waldman in a Monday article for The Washington Monthly. “The…

When citing instances of “the worst in human behavior,” reasonable choices include the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and whatever ISIS did today. In a Sunday post, Washington Monthly blogger D. R. Tucker offered an absurdly unreasonable choice: the last ten Republican national conventions. Tucker did comment hopefully that “perhaps this year’s GOP convention will be so sick, so sordid, so sour…

Though the Brexit debate didn’t break down along ideological lines, some liberal writers focused their morning-after scorn on pro-Leave conservatives. Talking Points Memo editor and publisher Josh Marshall wrote that American conservatives rooted for Brexit because of “the same turn back…the clock to glory nonsense that animates Trumpism…American conservative glee [over Brexit] is just a retreat…

In a Sunday post, The Washington Monthly’s D.R. Tucker urged Bern-feelers to follow the example of conservatives who “rebounded from Barry Goldwater’s spectacular [1964] loss [and became] a dominant force. By forming influential think tanks and media outlets, pressuring the mainstream press to focus on issues right-wingers considered important, and voting consistently in even the most ‘minor’ of…

Megyn Kelly as an unofficial campaign surrogate for Donald Trump? That’s how Washington Monthly blogger D.R. Tucker cast her when he posited that this year’s presidential contest boils down to “a fight between Rachel Maddow’s America and Megyn Kelly’s America.” “The presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential candidates embody the distinctive traits of” Maddow and Kelly, contended Tucker…

One demographic group you won’t see mentioned in poll results from Quinnipiac, Monmouth, or pretty much anywhere else is “aggressive a**hole[s].” Nonetheless, according to Washington Monthly blogger Martin Longman, such voters have constituted the key bloc in this year’s Republican presidential primary-and-caucus process. “If you take the electorate and subtract every laid off mechanic and guy…

If judicial review means that the U.S. Supreme Court is a de facto super-legislature that can in effect supersede actual legislatures, that’s fine with Washington Monthly blogger Martin Longman. In a Wednesday post, Longman acknowledged that certain SCOTUS rulings over the past several decades have been politically motivated, but argued that those were appropriate remedies for the “deplorable and…

Liberals disagree on when Republicans changed from a mere opposition party into a truly malign force. For obvious reasons, the early 1980s are a popular choice. Martin Longman thinks it happened later, during Bill Clinton’s second term, but also speculates that the GOP’s “crackpot” period may be almost over. Donald Trump’s presidential bid, contended Longman in a Friday post, may even spell the…