The filibuster is an affront to commonly understood democratic norms, but then so is the Senate.
Hendrik HertzbergA person's character is what it is. It's a little like a marriage - only without the option of divorce. You can work on it and try to make it better, but basically you have to take the bitter with the sweet.
Hendrik HertzbergI don't think that the "freedom movement" is a racist movement as such. But it's a virulent example of identity politics. "Whiteness" is part of the identity, but not the most important part.
Hendrik HertzbergIt’s a strange sort of attack, to be sure: a wonderfully pacific attack, a supportive attack, an attack without the slightest intention or capacity to cause harm, consisting, as it does, of the earnest wish of certain loving couples to join themselves to that very institution and thus to feel themselves, and be accepted as, full members of the American (and human) family.
Hendrik HertzbergUnfair in practice is not the same thing as wrong in principle, but sometimes it has to do.
Hendrik HertzbergThe dismaying truth is that birtherism is part of a larger pattern of rejection of reality that has taken hold of intimidating segments of one of the two political parties that alternate in power in our governing institutions. It is akin to the view that global warming is a hoax, or that the budget can be balanced through spending cuts alone, or that contraception causes abortion, or that evolution is just another theory, on a par with the theory that the earth is six thousand years old.
Hendrik Hertzberg