Ana Marie Cox

Thank you, Scott Fitzgerald, for teaching me that if I loathe EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER in a book, I probably will not enjoy the reading experience. Sometimes I read on anyway, if the writing style is compelling or it's an Important Book or my spidey senses tell me the characters will undergo some fundamental change that makes them likeable, but Dog Days didn't hit any of those points for me.

I don't care about anyone in Cox's story and I have no desire to read about their political maneuverings and adulterous affairs. I don't care about their graham-cracker heels or their champagne preferences or their stupid Blackberries. The most hilarious thing about Dog Days is that somehow I ended up with two copies, and I can't make it past the first fistful of pages -- I got to page 36. I'm done.… (altro)

Since the election of Obama, a little bit of the steam has gone out of this institution of American political-junkiedom in the late Bush years, for obvious reasons--things have gotten better, at least in that "our leaders are pirates and war criminals and to all appearances dumber than a wheelbarrow of bricks, and they are ruining everything" sense. But for a while it was a daily ritual for me--from the 2004 election to the 2008 election, or so, which when you think about it is a pretty fantastic run. The kind of balanced commitment to principle (meaning there was a progressive political project behind it, at least at its best) and mockery (meaning that said PPP never stopped democrats or guys we like from coming up for humiliation when needed) was and still is a recipe for Jon Stewartesque satire, only with more blingees and gin and bum sex. Wonkette was needed in that decade of mindboggle and bafflegab, and when we needed it it was there. http://wonkette.com.… (altro)