A couple of weeks ago, [*], in connection with the hyping of Charles Colson’s recidivism-reduction program, I suggested that there was an essay to be written about the Bush Administration as the first post-modern Presidency. Josh Marshall has now written it. [*] (It’s more than possible that I the idea from him in the first place.) I’m going to ignore Matt Yglesias’s quite plausible suggestion [*] that there’s an element of American Pragmatist will-to-believe in there as well, since I despise the post-modernists but think there’s some good stuff in the Pragmatists, though my admiration is mostly for Pierce rather than James.
Tapped has a good riff [*], starting off from a piece in CJR by David Greenburg [*] on how the press’s reluctance to call a lie a lie when it comes to policy-relevant facts, as opposed to biographical ones, advantages the Republicans. I’m even more concerned about the way it debases the overall quality of public discourse, but I think both claims are true.