Two things of note, in something of a tangential followup to the discussion ongoing under the Brown/DeWine/torture bill post and on past bloggery during elections here on the dc — Andrew Sullivan muses briefly about the notion of Goldwater Democrats (!) here, riffing off of Markos Moulitsas’s essay on the libertarian Democrat at the Cato Institute’s (!) online magazine CATO UNBOUND.

An interesting notion, although my first thought was “leaving aside the personal peccadilloes, doesn’t this pretty much describe the last administration?” Anyway, bears some thinking about…

What the title says:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zXU0N__6HY]

(via waxy and kotaku)

So here’s something not one of you ever thought you’d hear me say, but I just decided: I’m definitely voting for DeWine in November.

Why? Mostly because I believe Mike DeWine has the courage of his own convictions — right or wrong, agree with him or not, I at least think he has some principles. Sherrod Brown, however, apparently frightened that the GOP might paint him as a weak-kneed soft-on-terror liberal in the upcoming election, voted in favor of the detainee-and-torture bill mentioned below.

Voting for a bad, bad piece of legislation just so you can improve your chances of getting elected is pretty much my definition of the worst kind of politician, no matter what their individual politics are. (And what, hoping that you get a majority in November that would let you undo whatever piss-poor decision you made in September? That’s so dumb I don’t even know where to begin with that one.)

Also note that gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland apparently didn’t vote on this bill at all. Not happy with that, either, but you know, at least it wasn’t a complete rejection of the ideals you profess to have.

Kevin Drum has more here. Frankly, I’d seen in the DISPATCH earlier today that there were actually 34 Democrats who voted for the bill in the House yesterday, but it never even occurred to me that in this most heated of Senate races this year, Brown would have been one of them. Idiot.

Worth repeating:

Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.

…There is not enough time to fix these bills, especially since the few Republicans who call themselves moderates have been whipped into line, and the Democratic leadership in the Senate seems to have misplaced its spine. If there was ever a moment for a filibuster, this was it.

We don’t blame the Democrats for being frightened. The Republicans have made it clear that they’ll use any opportunity to brand anyone who votes against this bill as a terrorist enabler. But Americans of the future won’t remember the pragmatic arguments for caving in to the administration.

They’ll know that in 2006, Congress passed a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Read the whole damning, depressing thing.

It’s a new TV season, and while we’ll have more to say on that subject later, for now, here’s a long but endlessly fascinating essay on the opening credit sequence for the first four seasons of HBO’s THE WIRE — easily the best show on television right now. And check the comments for responses from creator David Simon and producer Karen Thorson!

(And shhhh! I haven’t had a chance to watch yet this season — all on TiVo right now — so try not to spoil too much for me!)

RADAR ONLINE interviews John “I’m a PC” Hodgman about his book, THE AREAS OF MY EXPERTISE.

Guess who’s having a baby?

(no, not us. Congratulations, Mer and BJ!)

And while I have no link, I may have other congrats to pass on — maybe it’ll rear its head in comments…!

Babies! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

EDIT: Please see comments below.

Here’s something I can’t believe I missed (and from the ol’ Alma Mater, too):

Poll: Anti-government anger spurs 9/11 conspiracy belief

More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.

The national survey of 1,010 adults also found that anger against the federal government is at record levels, with 54 percent saying they “personally are more angry” at the government than they used to be.

Widespread resentment and alienation toward the national government appears to be fueling a growing acceptance of conspiracy theories about the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Suspicions that the 9/11 attacks were “an inside job” _ the common phrase used by conspiracy theorists on the Internet _ quickly have become nearly as popular as decades-old conspiracy theories that the federal government was responsible for President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and that it has covered up proof of space aliens.

Seventy percent of people who give credence to these theories also say they’ve become angrier with the federal government than they used to be.

Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is “very likely” or “somewhat likely” that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them “because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East.”

Emphasis mine, obviously. Other creeptastic findings from the poll: 16 percent of respondents (!) think the towers were blown up with explosives, not a plane crash; 12 percent think a cruise missile was the cause of destruction at the Pentagon. Understand that in a poll sample of 1,010, that’s 161 and 121 people, respectively.

Found all of this via this even more creeptastic story about 9/11 conspiracy theories and the people propogating them — including former members of the Bush administration.

We are becoming a nation of Oliver Stones.