Amy Sullivan

BASKETBLOG…I just want to thank Kevin’s LA Lakers for taking Kwame Brown off our hands over the summer. To be perfectly honest, after four years of Kwame’s excellent attitude and dedication, the Wizards probably would have traded him in exchange for a piece of stale bread. So getting Caron Butler in the deal was just […]

BUSH’S WAR ON FAITH, PART 2….For more on All Saints, the church that’s being targeted by the Bush IRS, go to the church’s website, where you can read the sermon that supposedly prompted the IRS action, and all of the documentation involved in the investigation. There is no blanket ban on political speech in houses […]

NOT SO FAST….The big intelligent design story in the news today is the Kansas State Board of Education’s decision to approve statewide science standards that cast doubt on evolution. More important, however, was what happened at the polls in Dover, Pennsylvania. In that small, relatively conservative Pennsylvania town, voters booted all eight Republican pro-intelligent design […]

FAITH INDEED….The post-mortems of yesterday’s elections will continue, but already one of the conclusions forming about Tim Kaine’s victory in Virginia is that it shows how a religious Democrat can neutralize the recent Republican advantage on cultural issues and character. Kaine talked about his faith consistently, starting from the very beginning of his campaign. He […]

BUSH’S WAR ON PEOPLE OF FAITH….Today we learn that Bush’s IRS is investigating a prominent liberal Episcopal church because of a sermon last fall in which the minister condemned Bush’s policy in Iraq. (No word on whether the agency is also going after the Baptist church that kicked out members who voted for John Kerry. […]

NO COMMUNION FOR JUDGES, PART 2….Ramesh Ponnuru and Stephen Bainbridge both take umbrage at my suggestion that Catholic judges might be vulnerable to the same sort of pressure that Catholic politicians are. Of course, saying that the two of them disagree with me is about as remarkable as saying that the sky is still blue, […]

NO COMMUNION FOR JUDGES?….It didn’t take long after the Alito nomination was announced for people to figure out that his confirmation would lead to a 5-4 Catholic majority on the Supreme Court. I don’t think that really matters in terms of how the Court would rule. But it does put the Catholic Church in a […]

TIM KAINE’S TEST OF FAITH….Garance Franke-Ruta commented yesterday on the ads here in the D.C.-area for Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tim Kaine’s campaign, noting that Kaine has responded to attacks on his anti-death penalty position by taking a page out of the GOP playbook and putting his faith–Catholic–front and center. “My faith teaches that life […]

“THE SCANDALS FINALLY BREAK”….Abramoff. DeLay. Rove. Plame investigation. Katrina investigation. Armstrong Williams investigation. I know I’m missing others, but you get the idea. Kevin’s far too modest to point this out himself, but he predicted all of this (at least the general storyline) more than a year ago: “What do we have to look forward […]

GALSTON AND KAMARCK, REVISITED….Last week, Kevin posted a tough critique of the Galston/Kamarck paper on polarization, and was, predictably, chastised for not being tough enough. In response, he wrote another item that defended the paper without actually saying so. You can read a more straight-forwardly positive take on Galston/Kamarck in David Broder’s column this morning. […]