Criticizing right-wing eliminationism can be hazardous to your health.

I was just gazing adoringly at the following addition to my inbox:

Dear Fellow Conservative,

Do you know which special interest has given more money to the Obama and Clinton campaigns than any other?

If you guessed "trial lawyers" -- well, okay, that's too easy. But can you guess which special interest came in second?

Take a peek at the map below, and tell me what you think it depicts. I'll post the answer tomorrow. (P.S.: I've erased two comments, and also an accidental hint. Come on, dear readers: no cheating! If you saw the same article I did and recognize the map, hold back.)

I was just gazing adoringly at the following addition to my inbox:

Dear Fellow Conservative,

Do you know which special interest has given more money to the Obama and Clinton campaigns than any other?

If you guessed "trial lawyers" -- well, okay, that's too easy. But can you guess which special interest came in second?

Take a peek at the map below, and tell me what you think it depicts. I'll post the answer tomorrow. (P.S.: I've erased two comments, and also an accidental hint. Come on, dear readers: no cheating! If you saw the same article I did and recognize the map, hold back.)

I just read something very, very unpleasant because it felt very, very true. In fact, though it's only a short sentence, it's so disturbing I can't bring myself to type it out myself.

Goodbye, Mr. Christian.

Let me explain the spit take that ended the last segment. One of Mark's other guests was a fellow who won, yes, a national skilz contest for coffee baristas—supposedly, this is the cat who literally makes the best coffee in America. He brewed some up for all the guests. I pretended it was foul swill, and—comedy gold.

Musical guest, by the way, was Jon Langford, formerly of the Mekons. Later on that same evening, he went on stage with his band the Waco Brothers accompanied, of all things, by a thirty-man Welsh choir, most of them senior citizens.

Be it resolved: all book interviews should take place in bars. Last month I appeared on "The Interview Show," a Chicago institution in which humorist Mark Bazer puts on what basically feels like a version of the old Dick Cavett Show, onstage at the Hideout Bar. While I finish up a long post, enjoy your blogger talking about NIXONLAND whilst delightfully lubricated with vodka and cranberry juice.

Most of the progressive reforms that we now take for granted were pushed through during narrow windows of opportunity—which subsequently slammed shut with the work not yet complete. The Oval Office's most effective inhabitants have always understood this. Does Barack Obama? Here's what history suggests is the right approach to get dramatic change out of Washington.