An update to my earlier mention of Seymour Hersh—you can see him in an extensive (maybe 30 minute) video interview with New Yorker editor-in-chief David Remnick. Hersh can be frustrating in interviews because his mind skips around to so many different topics that it can be difficult to get him to finish his point. Remnick does as good a job as any human could of trying to keep him on topic, though it’s a struggle. I don’t really mind, though—the breadth of Hersh’s knowledge is pretty astounding, and he is a lot more casual about speaking his mind than he could ever be in print. Well worth a look, I’d say.

There’s been a lot of hue and cry among Democrats about right-wing attacks upon a 12-year-old boy who spoke in favor of the SCHIP children’s insurance bill which President Bush vetoed. As it happened, the critics got nearly all the facts wrong, though to this day some still refuse to back down. Paul Krugman has a clear and concise roundup of the facts and figures, and if after reading that you still want to take the Frost family to task, then I’m afraid there’s just no reasoning with you. I’m sorry, the concept of government aid does not require that you be naked on the street with running sores before you qualify for help.

To my mind, though, the last word on the subject comes from the blog of “reasonable conservative” Jon Swift in his post titled “Fair Game.” I swear, sometimes I think this guy is Stephen Colbert blogging under a different name (not really, but you get the idea), and this is just a brilliant post.

I don’t want to slip back into lurk mode without mentioning one other great column from Paul Krugman. I, too, have often been puzzled by the vitriol that the mere mention of Al Gore seems to bring out in certain people. Krugman calls it Gore Derangement Syndrome, and makes a pretty compelling case as to “what is it about Mr. Gore that drives right-wingers insane?”

Is it just me, or is the entire right wing rising to a lunatic pitch of stridency? I’d like to hope that it’s because they’re starting to realize that fewer and fewer people are listening. But hope is pretty hard to come by these days. We’ll have to wait and see.