Adam Serwer

The second in a five-part series about HBO's new show, which premieres this weekend More »

The theological justification for al Qaeda's wholesale slaughter of civilians was provided by Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, also known as Dr. Fadl, one of the founding fathers of al Qaeda. Because the murder of innocents is forbidden in Islam and the murder of Muslims in particular, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden required some sort of theological framework for justifying terrorism. This was provided by al-Sharif, who essentially argued in his book, "The Compendium… More »

The positive anthem is a genre of hip-hop song Talib Kweli mastered with "Get By" and then beat to death an album later with "I Try." "Get By" is sort of plugged as an option for the emcee who's more lyrically than musically inclined, who's trying to show intellectual depth and draw a certain kind of audience. More »

[A. Serwer] This is going to be my post on the awesomeness that is the Ayn Rand-inspired Xbox game BioShock and its sequel. I'll put most of it under the fold so that the folks who don't want spoilers can easily avoid them. In case you haven't played BioShock, I'll summarize: In 1960, a plane crashes into the ocean, and you are the only survivor. You swim to a nearby lighthouse. Inside, there's a submarine-like device called a "bathysphere" that brings you to… More »

National Review Writer Victor Davis Hanson is scratching his scalp raw trying to figure out the motivation behind Obama's national security strategies: More »

[A. Serwer]The Times: WASHINGTON -- The Taliban's top military commander was captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to American government officials.The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He… More »

[A. Serwer] Hey everyone, it's an honor to be back at Ta-Nehisi's place. I'm a writer at The American Prospect, and an alumnus of Jack and Jill Politics as dnA. I was also one of TNC's guestbloggers last June. I write mostly about human rights, civil liberties, and race, and if it stops blowing my mind at some point this week I'll have a post about Bioshock 2. Last week, John Mayer went through the traditional social ritual of a white celebrity who has said… More »

[A. Serwer] This has been a crazy week for me, blogging here, at TAPPED, and working on some other long-form stuff for the Prospect. I agreed to do it, basically, because TNC has been one of my heroes ever since I read this. Before I even knew I wanted to be a journalist, when I just thought I wanted to do something that involved writing, I knew I wanted to be able to write with as much honesty, clarity, and style as Ta-Nehisi Coates. So having the opportunity to… More »

[A. Serwer] When TNC first asked me to guest-blog, I thought I was going to be doing a lot more posts on comic books and video games then I ended up doing as a result of everything that's happened this week.. I wrote this post on Wednesday but I've saved it until today because most of my posts this week have been well--dense, and I didn't want to overwhelm the blog with text, but here goes. There was some discussion over in my previous post on Ricci over the… More »

[A. Serwer] Sean Wilentz's lengthy book review of several Lincoln biographies isn't up on The New Republic's website yet, [actually it is, my bad] but his criticism of several books on Lincoln--and his general objection to the "two Lincolns" narrative that rejects the fact that Lincoln was anti-slavery to begin with, may offer some insight into President Obama's perplexing stances on gay rights. Wilentz objects to an academic trend he sees as priviledging… More »

[A. Serwer] So like Ta-Nehisi, I've been pretty frustrated with the way that many on the left have simply embraced the idea that black people are standing in the way of marriage equality. The coverage in the fallout of proposition 8, which relied almost entirely on a CNN poll which had a sample of black men so small it couldn't be measured, but showed 70% of black folks voting for the measure, basically gave the entire press a pass to blame Prop 8's passage on… More »

[A. Serwer] Ya'll can't get mad at me, because I haven't done a Michael Jackson post yet. This will be my only one, barring unforseen developments. On the bus yesterday, I was reading Newsweek and found this article from David Gates on Michael Jackson: Why did he feel so deeply uncomfortable with himself? The hopeless task of sculpting and bleaching yourself into a simulacrum of a white man suggests a profound loathing of blackness. If Michael Jackson couldn't be… More »

[A. Serwer] I've posted a number of immediate reflections on the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling in favor of the white firefighters in the Ricci case over at TAPPED, which you can read here, here, and here. The conservatives on the court decided that the city decided to throw out the test results "All the evidence demonstrates that the City rejected the test results because the higher scoring candidates were white." That's not what happened. There were a number of… More »

[A. Serwer] Dana Milbank debates Nico Pitney on Howard Kurtz's Reliable Sources. Milbank can barely bring himself to respect Pitney as a person, let alone a journalist: according to Pitney, Milbank called him a "dick" while Kurtz was promoting another segment. I've already written about what I think of this whole matter--the White House notifying Pitney they intended to call on him in advance would have been offensive if it had been, as Milbank put it, "colluding… More »

[A. Serwer] Hey ya'll, this is Adam. You guys might know me from such blogs as TAPPED and Jack and Jill Politics. I'm honored to be guest-blogging for TNC, and I'll try my best, along with the others, to help keep this blog interesting in his absence. I don't usually write about sports. I don't even really watch sports like that--with the exception of soccer, which is the only game I really and truly love. I spent a number of my formative years in Italy or… More »