Republicans know well that a change of rhetorical pace is necessary. But efforts by their leaders to damp down the bellicosity of newly elected Tea Party types is running into the fact that the Tea Partiers have only the high volume setting on their amplifiers, just like Palin. They're like a couple having a fight at a funeral; politely sotto voce, then suddenly bursting out fortissimo with their plaints and accusations.
Alexander CockburnThere's a whole journalistic-industrial complex dedicated to keeping newsprint, TV screens and radio waves clean of destabilizing scoops damaging to corporations or the state.
Alexander CockburnThe travel writer seeks the world we have lost - the lost valleys of the imagination.
Alexander CockburnDespair is the central part of the psychopathology. For the handmaiden of gossip is treachery.
Alexander CockburnSo much for the crusade against drugs . . . all America is actually doing is consolidating its position as the biggest dealer in addictive and lethal substances on the planet, waging war on all rivals, whether they take the form of the Thai domestic tobacco industry or the Colombian cocaine cartels.
Alexander Cockburn