Salon.com > Politics http://www.salon.com Fri, 03 May 2013 19:34:37 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Salman Rushdie writes NYT op-ed on “political courage” http://www.salon.com/2013/04/28/salman_rushdie_writes_nyt_op_ed_on_political_courage/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/28/salman_rushdie_writes_nyt_op_ed_on_political_courage/#comments Sun, 28 Apr 2013 14:54:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13284129 In an op-ed for the New York Times, author Salman Rushdie wonders why "physical bravery" has come to trump "moral courage" in the eyes of the public. "It’s a vexing time for those of us who believe in the right of artists, intellectuals and ordinary, affronted citizens to push boundaries and take risks and so, at times, to change the way we see the world," Rushdie writes.

From the op-ed:

It’s harder for us to see politicians, with the exception of Nelson Mandela and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, as courageous these days. Perhaps we have seen too much, grown too cynical about the inevitable compromises of power. There are no Gandhis, no Lincolns anymore. One man’s hero (Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro) is another’s villain. We no longer easily agree on what it means to be good, or principled, or brave. When political leaders do take courageous steps — as France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, then president, did in Libya by intervening militarily to support the uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi — there are as many who doubt as approve. Political courage, nowadays, is almost always ambiguous.

Read more here.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/28/salman_rushdie_writes_nyt_op_ed_on_political_courage/feed/ 15 Best of the Salon limerick contest http://www.salon.com/2013/04/14/best_of_the_salon_limerick_contest_2/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/14/best_of_the_salon_limerick_contest_2/#comments Sun, 14 Apr 2013 15:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13270425 The best limericks submitted by Salon readers since the election:

So we’ve come to this point, as a nation,

Where a white man with money and station,

Is no longer a shoe-in,

So the Right Wing’s now stewin’:

“’Tis the End of Civilization!”

Bruce F. Cole

Kamuela, Hawaii

From Delaware hails our VP,

A fiscal cliff jumper is he.

He'll work on your pecs,

Offer old ladies sex,

Won't someone please put this guy on TV?

Josh Klemons

Madison, Wis.

Where’s Obama’s diversity minder–

His “qualified female” staff finder?

He’s named white guys galore,

To positions top-drawer,

Perhaps he should borrow Mitt’s binder.

Madeleine Begun Kane

Bayside, Queens

Did we have an assault weapons binge?

Just the thought should make all of us cringe.

Can we trust NRA,

To be honest when they,

Are the voice of a lunatic fringe?

Stephen Whitred

Barriere, B.C., Canada

In a tale of pro cycling woe,

Doping brought down a mighty hero.

But one detail I find,

Really frazzles my mind,

Who knew Oprah still had her own show?

Tom Foltz

Fort Wayne, Ind.

Although your new limerick contest is thrillin',

My brain appears not to be willin'

When every new verse

Than the last one is worse.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/14/best_of_the_salon_limerick_contest_2/feed/ 3 There is no Gosnell coverup http://www.salon.com/2013/04/12/there_is_no_gosnell_coverup/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/12/there_is_no_gosnell_coverup/#comments Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:18:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13269167 This week, the right wing has been working the refs, demanding to know why the press has been allegedly silent on the trial of Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia doctor who allegedly committed horrific acts against his patients with impunity for years. Fox News' Kristen Powers kicked it off with an Op-Ed in USA Today, claiming, "The deafening silence of too much of the media, once a force for justice in America, is a disgrace." Michelle Malkin has helped spearhead a Twitter campaign. Breitbart.com calls it "a full-blown, coordinated blackout throughout the entire national media."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/12/there_is_no_gosnell_coverup/feed/ 586 The liberal media’s gift to Mitch McConnell http://www.salon.com/2013/04/10/the_liberal_medias_gift_to_mitch_mcconnell/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/10/the_liberal_medias_gift_to_mitch_mcconnell/#comments Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:46:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13266458 After a recording of an opposition research strategy meeting was leaked to Mother Jones, Mitch McConnell is demanding that the FBI investigate the bugging of his office by the "political left." This is silly. McConnell knows it's silly. The meeting was almost certainly recorded by an attendee, not by "bugs" planted by liberal spies.

But the point isn't really to catch the perpetrator. The point is this ridiculous splash on his campaign website, in which visitors are told that McConnell's office was "wiretapped" by "liberals" and are encouraged to respond by sending all of their contact information, along with some money, to Mitch McConnell's reelection campaign.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/10/the_liberal_medias_gift_to_mitch_mcconnell/feed/ 29 Thatcher: A female icon, but not a feminist one http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/thatcher_a_female_icon_but_not_a_feminist_one/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/thatcher_a_female_icon_but_not_a_feminist_one/#comments Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:44:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13264858 There have always been women like Margaret Thatcher in power. Never more than one or two at a time, of course. Thatcher was the embodiment of what Katha Pollitt memorably called "the Smurfette syndrome," which is when "a group of male buddies will be accented by a lone female, stereotypically defined." She was not a feminist icon, nor any kind of feminist, as she took pains to remind people. "Some of us were making it before women's lib was even thought of," she once sniffed. To make it any more obvious, she might as well have literally kicked the ladder out from under her.

For decades, Thatcher's gender provided some public relations cover for her most noxious politics. That was true even today in the White House's statement on her death, which included the following treacly sentence: "As a grocer’s daughter who rose to become Britain’s first female prime minister, she stands as an example to our daughters that there is no glass ceiling that can’t be shattered."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/thatcher_a_female_icon_but_not_a_feminist_one/feed/ 53 GOP thinks imitating BuzzFeed to raise money is WIN! http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/the_gop_thinks_imitating_buzzfeed_to_raise_money_is_win/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/the_gop_thinks_imitating_buzzfeed_to_raise_money_is_win/#comments Fri, 05 Apr 2013 11:45:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13262314 The GOP is going to make its own BuzzFeed, apparently. National Journal's Brian Fung "won the Internet" yesterday with his report on the National Republican Congressional Committee's thrilling new website, which has a sidebar, and features lists.

The NRCC also hired 20 writers (the GOP will save publishing!) to create conservative versions of the soul-deadening crap BuzzFeed's list-generators are forced to compile. While it may sound like the aim is to appeal to a new demo -- kids who remember the '90s and who also believe that balancing the federal budget with deep domestic spending cuts will also somehow spur economic growth -- it's actually not quite that ambitious: The point is to boost traffic to the NRCC website, and therefore to increase donations to the NRCC. It appeared to be working, too, even before the entire liberal Internet stopped to point and laugh at the notion of a "conservative BuzzFeed," giving the project a massive amount of attention.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/the_gop_thinks_imitating_buzzfeed_to_raise_money_is_win/feed/ 5 Spare us your salary sequestration stunts http://www.salon.com/2013/04/04/spare_us_your_insulting_salary_sequestration_stunts/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/04/spare_us_your_insulting_salary_sequestration_stunts/#comments Thu, 04 Apr 2013 11:45:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13260868 Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel -- a former enlisted man, from modest circumstances -- said on Tuesday that he'd give up a portion of his $200,000 salary in solidarity with civilian Defense Department employees facing furloughs. (Hagel was simply following Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who announced his intention to forgo some of his salary a month ago.) Giving up 14 days' worth of salary, for Hagel, will require first getting paid, and then writing a check to the Treasury.

This prompted President Obama to announce that he, too, would call attention to the widespread deprivation and needless immiseration Congress has foisted upon the nation by formally returning 5 percent of his salary to the Treasury as well. Five percent of his $400,000 annual salary. That he doesn't need because he's rich.

Rep. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat and Iraq War veteran, upped the stakes by announcing that she had already written a $1,218 check to the Treasury , representing a whopping 8.4 percent of one month of her congressional salary. Duckworth, I am pretty sure, is not nearly as rich as President Obama or Secretary Hagel, but on $174,000 a year, not counting tax deductible expenses, $1,218 shouldn't hurt too much (she says she'll do a check each month).

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/04/spare_us_your_insulting_salary_sequestration_stunts/feed/ 32 One thing we don’t know about Hillary http://www.salon.com/2013/04/03/hillary_2016_and_the_mark_penn_test/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/03/hillary_2016_and_the_mark_penn_test/#comments Wed, 03 Apr 2013 14:17:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13259587 Hillary Clinton made her first public speech since leaving the State Department last night, addressing the Vital Global Leadership Awards at the Kennedy Center. She did not say she is running for president in 2016. But this week, at least, she seems very much like she is. A super PAC staffed in part with former Clinton campaign aides is up and running and sending out press releases. Clinton made a show of support for gay marriage in a Human Rights Campaign video, and will make a whole host of speeches at venues across the country over the next few months. (She's on the lucrative private speaking circuit as well.)

There is a series of clichéd caveats you have to get through when you write about this stuff: 2016 is a long ways away. Making predictions is an invitation to mockery in a few years' time. At this point in 2006, the 2008 election was supposedly going to pit Mark Warner against George Allen.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/03/hillary_2016_and_the_mark_penn_test/feed/ 81 Libertarians name North Dakota “most free” state http://www.salon.com/2013/03/28/libertarians_name_north_dakota_most_free_state/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/28/libertarians_name_north_dakota_most_free_state/#comments Thu, 28 Mar 2013 21:35:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13254979 The Mercatus Center, a libertarian-oriented -- and Koch brothers-affiliated -- think tank based out of George Mason University (a public university, for whatever that's worth), regularly releases its ranking of American states in terms of "Freedom." Their definition of "freedom" largely adheres to the standard American libertarian conception of "liberty," which is to say it is oriented almost entirely around private property ownership and low taxation. As a result, America's freest state this year turns out to be North Dakota.

North Dakota has also been in the news for another reason recently. What was it, again? Oh, right, it passed the most restrictive antiabortion laws in the country. Including a law specifically aimed at shutting down the state's lone abortion provider. It passed this law knowing it was unconstitutional.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/28/libertarians_name_north_dakota_most_free_state/feed/ 141 Obama to dine with GOP senators again http://www.salon.com/2013/03/27/obama_to_dine_with_gop_senators_again/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/27/obama_to_dine_with_gop_senators_again/#comments Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:23:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13253999 Barack Obama is going to have dinner with Republicans again. The president asked Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson to put the whole thing together, and no one yet knows where it will be or who will go, but it will definitely Increase Civility.

A few weeks ago, Obama had dinner with 12 Republican senators and the group "talked about the debt, deficits and taxes." That dinner having apparently done nothing to change the fact that on matters related to debt, deficits and taxes Republicans and Democrats don't merely have different preferred solutions but in fact wildly different interpretations of what the problems are, they will try again. Or maybe it will be a different group of 12 Republican senators this time, who knows.

I imagine Obama will once again push for a Deficit Deal, involving "a mixture of revenue and spending cuts," no matter how little we need such a thing at the moment, and he will also probably bring up immigration and gun control, though Republicans don't need much more nudging on immigration and gun control will never interest them.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/27/obama_to_dine_with_gop_senators_again/feed/ 6 The last, worst argument against gay marriage http://www.salon.com/2013/03/26/the_last_worst_argument_against_gay_marriage/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/26/the_last_worst_argument_against_gay_marriage/#comments Tue, 26 Mar 2013 21:19:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13252665 Most popular opposition to same sex marriage is driven by simple homophobia. I'm sure opponents would disagree, but it seems like the rapid shift in public opinion on the question is evidence that the once-prevalent attitude that gays are weird and/or gross is dissipating as straight Americans get to know more and more out LGBT Americans.

"Gays are weird and/or gross," though, is not a great legal argument, and right now the Supreme Court is deciding whether or not there is a good reason for the state to ban same-sex marriages while allowing opposite-sex marriages. So far the best that opponents of equality could come up with was "opposite marriage is just the way marriage has always been." That falls apart when you compare the modern American institution of marriage to marriages as they've been practiced throughout human history, as anyone who has read a book called "the Bible" could tell you. So the opponents moved on to their current argument -- the last, best argument for banning gay marriage -- which is, basically, "for the children."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/26/the_last_worst_argument_against_gay_marriage/feed/ 132 Scott Walker hires torture apologist to ghostwrite campaign book http://www.salon.com/2013/03/25/scott_walker_hires_torture_apologist_to_ghostwrite_campaign_book/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/25/scott_walker_hires_torture_apologist_to_ghostwrite_campaign_book/#comments Mon, 25 Mar 2013 20:54:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13251580 Looks like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is going to try to be president now. Robert Costa reports that Walker is "collaborating on a book with Marc Thiessen, a former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush." It's not like a sci-fi robot murder mystery that takes place in the distant future on Ganymede, either: It is an I would like to be president sort of book, "with stories about his family, his values, and his rise to power." It will probably be boring.

But just because it will be a boring book doesn't mean that its existence isn't interesting.

Thiessen is a very poor Washington Post opinion columnist who wrote a book in which he strung together a series of distortions in support of the thesis that torture is great. Before the book and the column gig, he was a speechwriter for George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. (Before that, Thiessen spent six years as a spokesperson and "policy adviser" to unreconstructed white supremacist Sen. Jesse Helms, which is another thing that should effectively bar him from participating in civilized society.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/25/scott_walker_hires_torture_apologist_to_ghostwrite_campaign_book/feed/ 18 Is the two-state solution finally dead? http://www.salon.com/2013/03/23/is_the_two_state_solution_finally_dead/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/23/is_the_two_state_solution_finally_dead/#comments Sat, 23 Mar 2013 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13249753 Let’s give Mitt Romney some credit for candor on the Middle East, if for almost nothing else. President Obama’s soaring rhetoric in his campaign-style speech this week in Jerusalem, when he urged the Israeli public to “create the change that you want to see” and laid out a moral and philosophical case for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, showed us the leader of the free world at the top of his oratorical game. But Obama didn’t go to Israel with any concrete plan to restart negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, a pair of weakened politicians who lack clear mandates from their own people. Despite vague promises to send Secretary of State John Kerry into the breach in coming weeks, it’s by no means clear that he has one.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/23/is_the_two_state_solution_finally_dead/feed/ 145 Paul Broun runs for Senate by trolling his colleagues http://www.salon.com/2013/03/21/paul_broun_runs_for_senate_by_trolling_his_colleagues/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/21/paul_broun_runs_for_senate_by_trolling_his_colleagues/#comments Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:02:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13248312 Georgia Republican Rep. Paul Broun, a total nutcase, is running for U.S. Senate.

I'm just going to quote myself writing in January about Broun's decision to run:

Georgia's primary election runoff rules might prevent Broun from eking out a plurality victory over a bunch of less-crazy candidates, but even if he doesn't win, he’ll definitely push the entire field further to the edge of the fringe that the national party has been trying to back away from since November.

Since I wrote that, a couple of things have happened. First, the Republican National Committee released a huge report begging the Republican Party to moderate its language and some of its policies. Second, two members of the Republican House delegation from Georgia voted against the most recent Paul Ryan budget -- because they found it to be insufficiently conservative. One of those members was Broun, who published an Op-Ed decrying the budget before the vote. The other was Rep. Phil Gingrey, who is also considering running for the Senate seat, and thus "can't let Broun get to his right," as Dave Weigel says.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/21/paul_broun_runs_for_senate_by_trolling_his_colleagues/feed/ 3 Did Rand Paul kill conservative opposition to immigration reform? http://www.salon.com/2013/03/20/did_rand_paul_kill_conservative_opposition_to_immigration_reform/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/20/did_rand_paul_kill_conservative_opposition_to_immigration_reform/#comments Wed, 20 Mar 2013 21:25:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13247294 Rand Paul has some sort of magic touch, according to TPM's Benjy Sarlin, as his immigration reform turnaround apparently convinced a roomful of the sort of Republicans who refer to immigrants as "animals" that allowing many of them to seek citizenship wouldn't necessarily be a horrible idea.

Earlier this year I told everyone to be skeptical that immigration reform would pass, and one of the reasons I cited was the I thought rather obvious fact that House Republicans didn't support it. Now Rand Paul nearly has me convinced it could pass the House with more Republican than Democratic support.

Paul's primary argument was to convince very conservative politicians that they could get away with supporting immigration reform, even though the president wants it and many conservative voters don't. The strategy is to just use different words, basically.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/20/did_rand_paul_kill_conservative_opposition_to_immigration_reform/feed/ 8 MSNBC selectively remembers the Iraq War http://www.salon.com/2013/03/19/msnbc_selectively_remembers_the_iraq_war/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/19/msnbc_selectively_remembers_the_iraq_war/#comments Tue, 19 Mar 2013 19:38:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13246025 [UPDATE BELOW] MSNBC today ran two very interesting segments addressing the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. In one, Luke Russert interviewed veteran NBC foreign correspondent Richard Engel on the state of Iraq today (spoiler: not great). In another, Joe Scarborough hosted a large panel to discus how the Iraq War happened and what went wrong.

The Russert segment is sort of bizarre, referring to "that big anniversary" and completely ignoring the reasons the Iraq War started. It concludes -- after Engel explains how Iraq is once again in a sectarian civil war -- with Russert essentially asserting the inevitability of a military strike against Iran, saying they could be "months" away from building nuclear weapons.

Here's the Morning Joe segment. It's long, but well worth watching. Bob Woodward's presence adds a note of dark comedy to the proceedings. No one bothers to mention any of his horrible pre-war punditry, or his culpability for the misleading journalism the Washington Post was producing at the time.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/19/msnbc_selectively_remembers_the_iraq_war/feed/ 47 Sunday shows haven’t learned http://www.salon.com/2013/03/17/the_sunday_shows_learned_nothing/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/17/the_sunday_shows_learned_nothing/#comments Sun, 17 Mar 2013 19:09:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13244007 Happy tenth anniversary, Iraq War! To celebrate, America's Sunday Shows got you a Nearly Complete Absence of Any Sense of Responsibility or Indication That Any Lessons Were Learned. Here's what we got instead, today: Scaremongering about North Korea and Iran, great excitement about our new pope, and terribly unenlightening endless fact-free arguments about dueling federal budget proposals.

The big three Sunday Shows were all very budget-focused today, and on each of them everyone competed to be the most Serious about Balancing the Budget, which is obviously a self-evidently Good goal and not a totally unnecessary one. Not a single moderator came close to articulating the mainstream (in terms of economics, not politics) view that the government doesn't have to balance its budget. (It was not that long ago that the government was running a surplus and conservatives and economists kept saying on the TV that that was a bad thing, right?) Instead, they pressed their guests (usually one Democrat elected official and one Republican elected official) on how "serious" their party's proposals were, with "seriousness" measured in terms of how likely it was that a proposal would get passed by Congress and signed by the president. Alas, neither the Senate Democratic Budget nor the Ryan Budget came close to meeting the Seriousness standard. (Fun fact: The House Progressive Caucus budget does not exist. No one mentioned it on any of the three shows.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/17/the_sunday_shows_learned_nothing/feed/ 41 Pick of the week: Dick Cheney has no regrets http://www.salon.com/2013/03/15/pick_of_the_week_dick_cheney_has_no_regrets/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/15/pick_of_the_week_dick_cheney_has_no_regrets/#comments Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13229670 There are so many jaw-dropping moments in “The World According to Dick Cheney” that I’m sure to forget several of them. One comes right at the beginning, when interviewer and co-director R.J. Cutler asks the most “consequential” vice president in American history – that’s Cheney’s word – a series of softball questions to get him warmed up. Cheney looks undeniably older and thinner after his recent heart transplant (talk about jokes that write themselves!), and he does deliver a few minuscule nuggets of warm-and-fuzzy: Happiness is fly-fishing on the Snake River, and misery is the loss of a family member. In case you’ve been wondering, his favorite food is spaghetti. Then Cutler asks Cheney about his biggest flaw. It’s a standard Barbara Walters-style question, for which every skilled politician has a faux-humble answer at the ready.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/15/pick_of_the_week_dick_cheney_has_no_regrets/feed/ 43 Louie Gohmert treated like rock star at CPAC, of course http://www.salon.com/2013/03/14/louie_gohmert_treated_like_rock_star_at_cpac_of_course/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/14/louie_gohmert_treated_like_rock_star_at_cpac_of_course/#comments Thu, 14 Mar 2013 19:22:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13229344 We've probably reached the point where coverage of the Conservative Political Action Conference, which is going on now in D.C., finally outweighs the actual influence and importance of CPAC. But the conference remains a useful glimpse at the state of the hardcore conservative movement.

That's why it's so fun to read this Betsy Woodruff story about how Texas congressman Louie Gohmert is being treated like a rock star at CPAC. Because Louie Gohmert is not just a nutjob -- he is a singularly useless and unaccomplished nutjob. The man has been in the House of Representatives since 2005 and in all that time all he's done is generate hundreds of outraged blog posts.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/14/louie_gohmert_treated_like_rock_star_at_cpac_of_course/feed/ 33 Chris Hayes to replace Ed Schultz in prime-time slot http://www.salon.com/2013/03/14/chris_hayes_to_replace_ed_schultz_in_prime_time_slot/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/14/chris_hayes_to_replace_ed_schultz_in_prime_time_slot/#comments Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:35:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13229047 Chris Hayes is ready for his close-up.

The hip, bespectacled journalist is preparing to take over the covetable 8 p.m. time slot vacated by Ed Schultz's "The Ed Show" — network executives have moved Schultz to Saturday and Sunday evenings. Hayes has hosted "Up With Chris Hayes" since September 2011, and established quite a following in less than two years of carrying a show.

"Chris has done an amazing job creating a franchise on weekend morning," network president Phil Griffin said in a statement. "He’s an extraordinary talent and has made a strong connection with our audience. This is an exciting time for MSNBC."

Griffin is banking on Hayes -- and possible Hayes's morning slot replacement Ezra Klein -- to make MSNBC a household name. Well, a liberal household name, at least. “Our awareness level, people who can define who we are, is much lower than Fox and CNN,” Mr. Griffin told the New York Times. The network president has been building out a brand identity through the steady recruitment of ever-younger, ever-more progressive on-air talent. Of the network's gravitation to the left, former President Bill Clinton remarked, “Boy, it really has become our version of Fox.”

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