Sep 4th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
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September 4th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
It’s authentic Yglesias alright — even down to the typo, “wracked” for “racked.” Good to know the MSM isn’t blunting your edge!
September 4th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Wow, Matt Yglesias in WaPo and Hilzoy’s factchecking post on CBS news. This has been a pretty strange day.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Really well argued piece, Matt.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Good job, Matt. Really nice work.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Excellent job of pulling together a whole lot of solid fact-based arguments, and as hard-hitting as any convention speech. Is it an online-only article?
September 4th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
One point of contention in an otherwise great article.
You refer to the “bad-odds game of craps.”
In fact, when played properly, craps has a house edge of 1% or less, giving it the *best* offs of any table game in a casino. Compare to 1.5% for blackjack, around 2% for baccarat and 5% for roulette. Slots keep anywhere from 2 to 20% of every dollar bet.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
WaPo? Ewww…do you feel dirty?
September 4th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
First, my sincere congratulations for publishing an Op-Ed in the WaPo. Second, my insincere congratulations for sneaking the above-mentioned “wracked” homonym past their copy editors, and the formatting error that italicized the last letter.
Jay F, the house always wins. But a skilled Poker player can come out ahead at the expense of their fellow players while still giving rent and tips to the house. There is no skill and in the long run no gains playing craps; it’s entirely about the thrill of chancing some cash, although given McCain’s wealth I guess it’s practically Monopoly money.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Very nicely done.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
then spent years thumbing his nose as the establishment that beat him
I thought there was something odd about his nose.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
That’s correct Warren but isn’t what is being discussed.
The house edge in craps is the smallest of any of the table games (when only the “main” bets are played). That’s a simple statement of statistical fact.
There are a lot of “side bets” in craps that are amongst the worst in the house though, so if one is looking to throw away their money as fast as possible, craps can fit that bill too. And since I’m guessing that McCain loves to throw $1000 bucks on ‘hard eight’ or ‘boxcars’ rather than dutifully betting $20 on the main pass line bet (and placing odds) each go around, the point Matt was making about McCain’s recklessness stands.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Excellent column.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I really want to be all mavericky and pan your piece, but how can I? Nicely played.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
As far as I know you’re one of the first people to actually point out the rather obvious fact that the media has grossly mischaracterized the choice of Palin as a “maverick” decision. There’s absolutely nothing maverick about passing on the people you want to choose and caving to the demands of your base instead. It’s the exact opposite of the image he tried to cultivate earlier this decade. I can’t believe more people don’t understand this.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Wow — sanity in the opinion section of the Post. Nice work.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Great job, and good to see a voice of reason making print in the WaPo. Odd you should mention Jefferson County. When my friends have called in shock to discuss Palin as Veep, I wondered why McCain didn’t just grab Ann Northup. She’s the party hack who represented Jeff Co. in Congress until the qualitativley far superior John Yarmuth beat her in 2006. Not as photogenic as Palin, though (Northup, that is).
September 4th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Nice. Let’s hope this has some influence on the media narrative about McCain.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Why can’t you write blog posts that good?
OTOH, while the article does a good job of summing up the reasons why McCain is a phony and shouldn’t win the election, it, like your blog posts, doesn’t address the problem of why McCain is still a factor in this election.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Big Deal! You lookin’ for a gold star from us or somethin?
Just kidding. You did a great job on that editorial. Just before I opened your blog, I noticed a headline from one of my RSS feeds talking about how Mc Cain is promising an end to the partisan bickering once he is elected. Funny how all I can see is the exact opposite in his current campaign. Like he expects us to believe he will change direction only if we trust him to by electing him first. Not. That. Stoopid.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Great job. Made me proud, like I was reading a hometown hero.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Best Wapo Article since Watergate.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Nice!
I, personally, have been using “she’s the governor of a state with only slightly more people than Staten Island.” (470,000 Staten Island vs. 670,000 Alaska).
September 4th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
I’m shocked: the WaPo printed something that’s misleading.
Let’s take a quick look and see how MattY is either trying to mislead or is (shock!) simply ignorant:
it’s true that McCain worked with Ted Kennedy to reform America’s dysfunctional immigration policy. But during the primaries McCain disavowed the bill they coauthored, caving in to the GOP’s anti-immigration base.
1. For the most part, the policy isn’t dysfunctional. The problem is that due to PoliticalCorruption – something that MattY implicitly supports – the laws have not been enforced. They aren’t unenforceable, except to those who are in effect being paid off.
2. Bills change over time; for instance, BHO added a PoisonPill amendment to it. Also, a huge number of huge problems were found with it (most of it had apparently been written by Teddy’s staff [and probably the AILA
]). And, of course, there was huge opposition to it from those Americans MattY chooses to ignore.
3. The base isn’t “anti-immigration”.
4. McCain’s cave-in is just a tactic; he wants the same thing as Bush, the MexicanGovernment, and BHO. He just has a different way to get it.
The bottom line here is that MattY has no real knowledge of issues like this. Not only that, but he’s unwilling to learn.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Props to Big-Op-Ed-Matt.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Excellent piece, gets right to the point.
bob in fla (#19) hit the nail on the head. Bush fed us the cross-the-aisle line in 2000, and it was all a load of shibai. I didn’t buy it, and George didn’t disappoint me. Hoping that extra margin of the electorate doesn’t buy it this time.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Heh! A short time after you pointed out Biden’s overuse of “literally”, what pops up in your article but…? Not the same overuse, but still…
Good article though.
September 5th, 2008 at 3:34 am
3. The base isn’t “anti-immigration”.
Another lie from the monomaniac.
The bottom line here is that Rebrand Kelly is an obsessive lying nativist ladder-puller, with no interest in doing anything that adding to his audience of fifteen white supremacists on 14,000 different websites.
September 5th, 2008 at 3:56 am
Well done piece. Nicely argued.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:44 am
A higher signal to noise ratio in the MSM–progress!
September 5th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Great work – as mentioned by the first commenter – vintage Matt with his trademark typo, albeit the one and only.
– r
September 6th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Good points!
How long will this country continue to feel a debt to John McCain? Has he not already been amply rewarded for his voluntary sacrifices in the military? He has been allowed to become an esteemed member of the U.S. Senate and to live a comfortable life from the wealth of a much younger wife. Why is he owed the presidency; an office for which he seems ill prepared mentally and physically? We did not feel the same about Bob Dole, did we?
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