Author: KcM

Come to Daddy.

“I frankly think it’s a natural default from the failure of this advice of the people they had. It was impossible to argue anymore that some of the people who got us into this mess were giving good advice.” With Dubya’s White House in shambles, will Bush 41’s team ride to the rescue? Let’s hope so — I much prefer those guys to the militant neocon wing that’s been holding the reins the past six years. Still, as one observer pointed out: “Bush’s mind works differently from the normal political mind…Maybe these Baker guys can talk him off the ledge, but nobody’s done it yet.”

With friends like these…

“‘They did this to protect themselves, but they couldn’t protect us?’ another Republican aide said yesterday.” According to Patrick O’Connor of The Hill, many GOP officials are absolutely livid about the timing of the Rumsfeld resignation. “For them to toss Rumsfeld one day after the election was a slap in the face to everyone who worked hard to protect the majority.” Meanwhile, the rest of us have to figure out how to trust this president when even he admits he openly lied to everyone about Rumsfeld’s fate (not that he was garnering a lot of confidence these days anyway.)

Shia, Sunni, Cylon.

“Surely you’ve heard by now (because we’ve certainly repeated it often enough) that ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ the new remake of the cheesy ’70s series, is the most thrilling and trenchant dramatic series on TV at the moment (except, of course, for “The Wire“)…”Battlestar Galactica” may be set in outer space, with robots, in the far distant past, but it reminds us every week that the other TV shows are the fantasies.” As the New Caprica arc draws to a close, Salon‘s Laura Miller sings anew the praises of Battlestar Galactica.

Sand in your Eyes.

The new Sandman-heavy trailer for Sam Raimi’s Spiderman 3 is now online. To be honest, I think I preferred the teaser — this one doesn’t really grab me (and it seems to give away too many plot points.) Nevertheless, here it is.

Bye Bye Bolton?

“I never saw a real enthusiasm on the Republican side to begin with. There’s none on our side.” The next GOP casualty of the 2006 elections? If the Dems can hold off a vote through the lame-duck Congress, it might just end up being UN rep John Bolton. “The White House formally renewed its request that the Senate take up Bolton’s nomination. But Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Democrats, said they continued to resist Bolton’s confirmation and ‘he is unlikely to get a vote any time soon.’” Update: To his credit, outgoing Senator Lincoln Chafee, who earlier announced his opposition to renewing Bolton, is sticking to his guns and siding with the Dems against Dubya on the issue. So Bolton looks to be gone in December…Koo koo kachoo.

I’m trying to remember the feeling when the music stopped.

“When U2’s songs weren’t on-the-nose political anthems, they were vague but heroically uplifting — filled with signifiers but signifying nothing. Whereas R.E.M. songs, drenched in Southern detail, allusive and elusive, sounded like fables or folk wisdom, U2’s majestic uplift often felt like the outtakes of a melodically gifted youth-group minister.” Ted of The Late Adopter sends along this side-by-side comparison of R.E.M. and U2 from Slate. I like them both, but, if forced to choose, definitely come down on the R.E.M. side of things. And I’d disagree with this guy’s periodization — I much prefer the most recent R.E.M. album to U2’s last few discs of self-referential “instant-classic-rock,” and thought U2 were actually at their best during their Achtung Baby/Zooropa/Pop experimentation phase. Still, worth a read.