Berube Moves Right

The old Michael Berube.

The new Michael Berube

Maybe, a code to let the insiders know when his latest post is real and when it is parody.

Seriously, Michael Berube has one of the more interesting blogs around. He's proof the cultural studies is not a bar to good politics.

He's promising to post a critique of parts of Tom Frank's message in What's the Matter With Kansas.

In the second pre-critique Berube praises Frank's book as

a chilling tale, full of post-Wichita anti-abortion extremism and some rather passionate intensity over the conviction that the universe is six thousand years old. For his rendering of that narrative, Frank’s book is more than worth the price of admission. Clueless Democrats and quasi-liberal journalists (you know, the kind who think they’re still dealing with reasonable, old-school prairie Republicans like Everett Dirksen out there) need to read this part of the book-- and it’s the major part of the book-- right now. At least by dinnertime today.

On the other hand

Kansas has such a weak Democratic party that there are no brakes on how far the GOP can run to the right. And whatever the national party’s failings-- and they are legion-- it’s hard to imagine that the Kansas Dems can revitalize themselves simply by running on an economic-populist platform. Ah, but this point takes us into those dreaded cultural issues, about which more tomorrow..

Stay tuned.