Today on the Dish, Andrew pondered whether Obama could finagle peace in the Middle East after starting over, and drafted a State of The Union address. James Franco's self-kiss left Andrew speechless, Peter Beinart measured the exodus of Israeli youth to other countries, and Andrew assessed the tuition tax hikes in Britain and what they've done to the Lib-Dem brand. We suffered another jolt in the DADT roller-coaster thanks to one man's bitter vendetta, and we tracked the full reax. Nate Silver decided DADT could be a nice slice of social reform pie to pair with economic reform, we kept an eye on Lieberman's tweets, and Serwer reminded us why DADT matters.
Will Wilkinson disparaged the left for its overblown reaction to the tax compromise and its silence on core liberties and Andrew agreed in principle. Hugh Hewitt hyperventilated about Tea Party opposition, Bush's economic wonk advised the right to take the deal, and Ed Kilgore considered a failed tax deal, with more analysis here. Larison nominated DeMint as the right's fiscal fraud, and Pelosi did to the tax cut deal what McCain (and Reid) were doing to DADT.
Babbage interviewed the Wikileaks Anonymous hackers, and Greenwald called it a war over control of the Internet. Andrew pointed out that the emperor still has clothes just not the power to keep them on, and Hemanshu Nigam confirmed the government probably won't ever be able to shut down the site completely. Contra Reihan, Serwer and Timothy Lee defended the DREAM Act, and Conor chalked it up to more than economics. Partisanship ruled whether attacks ads are considered fair, TSA may be categorizing airports as Fourth Amendment free zones, Google squared off with Amazon on e-books, and Matt Feeney marveled at the wave of Kelly Slater's skills.
Dissent of the day here, when Maggie met Sully here, FOTD here, VFYW here, chart of the day here, MHB here, and email of the day here.
--Z.P.