Articles by David Roberts

Oh yes, he’ll be back

Cali Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (whose name, bizarrely, I now know how to spell from memory) has his first challenger in the 2006 gubernatorial race.

This is so naive it's cute:

But some political observers say the question of whether Angelides, or any Democrat, can unseat Schwarzenegger in 2006 will turn on the events of the rest of this year.

Yes, if there's one thing the 2004 election showed, it's that "events" make or break a candidate!

First 2006 political prediction: Arnold is a lock.

An open letter to Nicholas Kristof

Nic,

Look, I think it's a great thing that the environmental movement is taking a hard look at itself, and I'm as critical of some of its tactics and rhetoric as anybody. But your latest op-ed is a lazy, risible piece of shit.

Be Cool — eventually

I saw Be Cool last night. It's the sequel to Get Shorty, and as you would expect, it's not nearly as good. But there are enough spirited, funny moments -- mainly involving bit characters played by The Rock and Andre 3000 -- to make it worth the price of admission. Barely.

One of the running jokes in Get Shorty was that Chili Palmer (apparently the only character John Travolta plays well) got stuck with a minivan. After he becomes a successful movie producer, and thus an arbiter of cool, everyone in Hollywood starts driving minivans.

The jokes is basically repeated in Be Cool, except this time he gets stuck with a Honda Insight (guess Honda outbid Toyota for product placement).

It's obvious why the minivan is funny -- it's associated with soccer moms and suburban squares. But it's worth pondering why the hybrid is funny.

And still *more* on ANWR

Last week we talked some about the Senate Republicans' sneaky move of placing the issue of drilling in the Arctic Refuge in a budget resolution, which unlike normal legislation cannot be stopped by a filibuster. If you're interested in the nuts-and-bolts mechanics of how that parliamentary trickery works, check out this post from Mark Schmitt. He aptly summarizes:

Now, where in that process is there an opportunity for real debate and bipartisan participation? Nowhere. A decision is made the night before the Budget Committee markup about what number to write into one of those open slots. From there, a series of "we have no choices" choices are generated, that might lead to further tax cuts or to opening ANWR. Only a significant number of Republicans declaring that they will vote against the whole thing can derail this process.

It's possible to understand this process as a way of reducing deficits, which was the procedure's original intent. As it did in the Reagan, Bush I and Clinton eras, it forces Congress to make choices in the aggregate that it does not want to make in the particular. But used as a procedure to cut taxes and increase deficits, and to push through other unrelated policies such as ANWR, it is simply an outrageous assault on democracy.