thenewrepublic: How did Jeffrey Toobin keep up the “train wreck” echo chamber? “There are two ways to explain the early onset of liberal panic over last week’s health care hearings at the Supreme Court. In the first, Solicitor General Don Verrilli turned in an unexpectedly weak performance during last Tuesday’s oral arguments, flubbing tough questions from the court’s skeptical swing votes. In the second, New Yorker writer and CNN legal correspondent Jeffrey Toobin got on television and scared the hell out of all of us.” - Simon van Zuylen-Wood, Jeffrey Toobin’s Big Week Photo courtesy of The Charlie Rose Show

thenewrepublic:

How did Jeffrey Toobin keep up the “train wreck” echo chamber?

“There are two ways to explain the early onset of liberal panic over last week’s health care hearings at the Supreme Court. In the first, Solicitor General Don Verrilli turned in an unexpectedly weak performance during last Tuesday’s oral arguments, flubbing tough questions from the court’s skeptical swing votes. In the second, New Yorker writer and CNN legal correspondent Jeffrey Toobin got on television and scared the hell out of all of us.”

- Simon van Zuylen-Wood, Jeffrey Toobin’s Big Week

Photo courtesy of The Charlie Rose Show

longreads: The dark force in Syria is not the Alawi religion. It’s not exactly the cult of Hafez Al Assad, either. Only the aged and the infirm refuse to acknowledge his death. But love for the sacred sanctuary he invented, the one protected by the blue-eyed family of pilots and horsemen, has not died. The dark force in Syria is excessive belief in this realm of unreality. All those people who served in its police force, killed on its behalf, and kept the silence while the killing was going on carry its banner. This species of belief is a non-denominational phenomenon. It is enforced by the Alawis but Sunnis—and Kurds and Christians—are most welcome. For the time being, it is holding fast. “The Cult: The Twisted, Terrifying Last Days of Assad’s Syria.” — Theo Padnos, The New Republic See more #longreads from The New Republic

longreads:

The dark force in Syria is not the Alawi religion. It’s not exactly the cult of Hafez Al Assad, either. Only the aged and the infirm refuse to acknowledge his death. But love for the sacred sanctuary he invented, the one protected by the blue-eyed family of pilots and horsemen, has not died. The dark force in Syria is excessive belief in this realm of unreality. All those people who served in its police force, killed on its behalf, and kept the silence while the killing was going on carry its banner. This species of belief is a non-denominational phenomenon. It is enforced by the Alawis but Sunnis—and Kurds and Christians—are most welcome. For the time being, it is holding fast.

“The Cult: The Twisted, Terrifying Last Days of Assad’s Syria.” — Theo Padnos, The New Republic

See more #longreads from The New Republic