He’s a right winger. But he’s not as bad as Sarah Palin, because at least he likes to spread the wealth around, like the president.

It’s astounding (or should be) that Yglesias actually gets paid for such lunacy.

[Update a couple minutes later]

This seems relevant, somehow: the left’s romance with Islamism.

[Another quick update]

Obama and the media misinterpret the Middle Eastern elections:

Thomas Friedman at the New York Times quoted Paul Salem, the starry-eyed analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “People in this region have become so jaded,” Salem explained. “And then here came this man [Obama], who came to them with respect, speaking these deep values about their identity and dignity … and this person indicated that this little prison that people are living in here was not the whole world. That change was possible.”

These misperceptions about Lebanon recall an old Arab proverb: “When shooting an arrow of truth, dip its point in honey.” Leg-tingling about the president aside, Hezbollah lost the election in Lebanon for several reasons; chief not among them was Obama’s amoral speechifying in Egypt.

But the leg tingling continues.

[Wednesday morning update]

More thoughts from Lileks:

Note how “cultural conservative” becomes conceptually elongated, so “right-wingers” who may, for example, not wish to redefine marriage become bunkmates with someone who denies the existence of homosexuals, and whose regime hangs them from lampposts. Well, we know the right-wingers here would, if they could, right? It’s only the possibility of bad PR that keeps Dick Cheney from setting his daughter on fire. As for demagogic nationalism, one suspects that Yglesias finds demagogy in anyone who talks about love of country and the great things America has done without landing with both feet on a big wet BUT, and then goes on read the syllabus from a Howard Zinn course.

I didn’t love America any less in the Clinton years than I did in the Bush years, or vice versa; I don’t conflate my opinions about transitory leaders with my opinion about the nation’s role in history and its exceptional, if occasionally improvised, conflicted, and compromised struggle to do the right thing. I mean, go back in history and find another one of us. (Note: small ethnically coherent Nordic states that can’t project power six feet over the border really don’t count.) But unqualified love of country unnerves some people, as though the lack of qualifications means you don’t recognize qualifying factors. Me, I think they’re obvious; we’re made of humans, after all, and every house we build has beams of crooked timber. But I don’t recall a lot of FDR speeches laying out a litany of American sins in order to bolster the case for why America should fight Hitler, despite all those troubling similarities. After all, we lynched Jews, too, ergo we must face our own demons as well as those abroad. And so on.

It’s interesting how he mentions Ahmadinejad’s demogogy, his “language of class resentment, painting his more pragmatic and reformist opponents as decadent elites out of touch with ordinary people,” and his populist use of oil revenues, and Sarah Palin comes to mind instead of Chavez – who, after all, called Ahamdi to tender a warm congrats. I swear, it’s the heels. They just make some men feel so small. In any case, when she gives a speech at the UN and later describes how she felt herself enveloped in a godly glow, give me a call.

It’s interesting that when it comes to fascism and communism, leftists can see only the difference, but when it comes to “conservatives,” they can see only similarities (and often imagined similarities).

[Bumped]

[Update a few minutes later]

Yglesias has a tingle up his leg: “Ahmadinejad has a pretty sweet hipster style.”

A man after my heart:

While many have been critical of the stimulus because the it hasn’t been spent quickly enough to have the intended economic effect, Coburn urges caution. “The key point I would make is that speed isn’t near as important as accuracy,” Coburn said regarding preventing future stimulus waste. “I think we’ve had way too much speed and not enough accuracy in terms of where we’re spending the money. I understand the rush to get it out to stem the tide of the recession, but this is a five-year bill anyway.”

Finally, Coburn is adamant that the feedback from taxpayers is such that federal spending priorities need to be watched closely. “The mood in the country is ‘You’re spending money on things you don’t need. Stop it. You’re overstepping the bounds of the federal government. Stop it. You’re borrowing our children into the poorhouse. Stop it,'” he said.

Yes. Stop it.

Including health-care deform.

And it would sure be nice to get a conversation going about the proper role of the federal government.