This thread was created in oder for the members of the website to showcase political pundits whom they consider intelligent and worth reading. It does not discriminate on the basis of political views and consequently I encourage people posting in this thread not to do so either. You may disagree with another poster's choices, please try not to attack them, just post a pundit who you believe to be intelligent and worth listening to. Everyone has the right to their own beliefs and should not feel threatened to post about them here. I will start. I very much admire Andrew Sullivan. You can read more about him here http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/ his blog is called the dish. In the interest of discovering more ways to see the world and more unique and astute analysis of today's political environment, I am excited to see your choices, so post away!
I don't know a lot about Jackie Speier but I see her on C-span all the time on the floor hammering away at military sexual assault. It is absurd that women join the military to serve their country and ends up getting raped. The more we learn about the topic the worse we find it is. I am glad she takes the time on the floor to speak out about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVzr4o-pBco
DYLAN RATIGAN!!!!! http://www.dylanratigan.com/ He said he would be back from his Skunk works project after the election!
Yeah I respect both of them a lot, but personally I think they're a little more liberal than me. Its always good to hear an argument that you're not in favor of argued strongly though because it really calls into question how firm your own beliefs are. Honestly though, I avoid MSNBC and FOX like the plague, and I probably shouldn't because I'm missing a huge amount of the political discourse going on in this country, as ridiculous as it may be.
For me, Ratigan is different because he takes a view point I have never heard. I mean the basic idea that our spending problems can be addressed by asking how we are spending money, instead of how much money are we spending, is so obvious, and yet you hear it no where else. The idea that efficiency is the answer to energy. The constant drum beating for good first step practices leading to the identification of the mechanism being used to corrupt our government(campaign donations), is something I had never heard without exempting unions, or calling for just disclosure. Time and time again he shows a ability to say what others can't or won't.
I guess I always considered him to be a pretty mainstream liberal, but I"ll have to check out his show more in depth. We can't have enough original thinking in the US today, in fact that is the only way were going to find the answers to our problems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_Ratigan Not much of a liberal past, and he had no issue calling every Dem out for being just as bought and paid for as Reps.
When Chris Matthews drops the pundit mentality, his work becomes quite enlightening. One need look no further than the book Hardball a modern laymen's version of Machiavelli's The Prince. Fareed Zakaria, outside of his plagiarism and highly liberal biased show, writes credible analyses on international relations, indicative by his book The Post-American World.
Actually I'm not sure he's not liberal and it seems that after the financial crisis he definitely became more liberal if he wasn't already before, economically speaking. He is further left economically than I am to be sure, but his innovative and informed perspective is refreshing and again, I'm not closed to listening to smart people whose views I don't share, in fact I welcome it. I'm not using liberal as a slur by the way, I try to use words in their proper meaning.
Chris Matthews really just needs to shut the (*)(*)(*)(*) up. I'm sorry but I can't watch his show because of how disrespectful he is. I'm sure he's smart and his views are worth considering, but I refuse in that format. I agree with you about Zakaria. If I am finding out about an issue for the first time and he is the author I generally consider it a credible source. I find myself at odds with him some of the time but that's not to say he's not incredibly knowledgable and insightful.
I liked Mathews during the Libby case. Since then the guy has been an utter shill that I can't stand.
This is why I never listen to his television programming. He simply uses it as a way to display his beliefs, but not his reasonable analyses and evaluations of politics. One can find those in his literary works such as the book Hardball. When you take political pundits, and politicians themselves out of the spotlight, and ask them to provide complex and nuanced accounts of the world they work in, you often are provided with reasonable analyses. A personal experience I have with such is a recent discussion forum on the 2012 Presidential election I attended on my college campus. Former Governors and Presidential Candidates Tim Pawlenty and Bill Richardson engaged in a fantastic and thoughtful evaluation of the current issues and idiosyncrasies affecting the soon-to-be outcome. On almost all points, both men agreed, albeit with legitimate and intelligent differences in perspective.
I'm glad you made that economic distinction, as I'm not sure what you would call his views on energy, HC, education. I guess I would him awake, instead of liberal or conservative. Economically he is definitely calling for market intervention, so I can see how you would view that as economically liberal.
