From the latest issue of the print edition, 1300 words or so on the permanent campaign that is our politics (including a bit about something the NDP has been up to that I don’t believe has been reported elsewhere).
Tag Archives: George Packer
How they do it
If senate reform is, as has been hinted, to be prominent in the government’s fall agenda, it is perhaps worth seriously considering what it is we want the senate to be. And on that note, here is an extensive look at the U.S. Senate, penned by the New Yorker’s George Packer after a few months of observation.
How we talk about this
Matthew Yglesias considers Packer.
How we talk about this
George Packer considers the way we discuss this stuff.
Looking at Iran
George Packer wonders why right-wing observers seem to welcome the corrupt Ahmadinejad re-election, and leftish observers demand that Westerners accept it. He concludes:
UPDATED!!! “Kristol’s performance on the Op-Ed page during the most interesting election in a generation is a historical symptom, not merely a personal failure.”
George Packer votes for change.
The news, when we get around to it
I’m still digesting this extraordinary piece by New Yorker writer George Packer about what he believes is the terminal crumbling of the conservative coalition that has dominated U.S. politics for most of my lifetime. As prognosis it’s arguable but at least plausible. As diagnosis it’s fantastic — the first third of the piece, on what Pat Buchanan and Dick Nixon were up to, is a tale told a thousand times but still full of lessons for students of politics. And as a metaphor for what Patrick Muttart, Stephen Harper and a few others have been up to, it is invaluable, and helps explain why events like this one deserve more attention than they sometimes get. I’ll share a few more thoughts after the jump, but first I want to complain about why you almost certainly haven’t had a chance to read Packer’s article in print yet.