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n.b.: blank screen? Your iGadget won’t run Flash. Complain to the man in the mock turtleneck.

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Tony Judt just passed after a two year battle with ALS.

Mr. Judt (pronounced Jutt), who was British by birth and education but who taught at American universities for most of his career, began as a specialist in postwar French intellectual history, and for much of his life he embodied the idea of the French-style engaged intellectual.

An impassioned left-wing Zionist as a teenager, he shed his faith in agrarian socialism and Marxism early on and became, as he put it, a “universalist social democrat” with a deep suspicion of left-wing ideologues, identity politics and the emerging role of the United States as the world’s sole superpower.

His developing interest in Europe as a whole, including the states of the former Eastern Bloc, led him to take an active role in the developing Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia; it culminated in “Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945” (2005), a sweeping, richly detailed survey embracing countries from Britain to the Balkans that, in the words of one reviewer, has “the pace of a thriller and the scope of an encyclopedia.”

Mr. Judt was perhaps best known for his essays on politics and current affairs in journals like The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, The Times Literary Supplement and The London Review of Books . . .

“Today I’m regarded outside New York University as a looney tunes leftie self-hating Jewish communist; inside the university I’m regarded as a typical old-fashioned white male liberal elitist,” he told The Guardian of London in January 2010. “I like that. I’m on the edge of both, it makes me feel comfortable.”

He’ll be missed. Here’s a column exploring his last minute race against time to complete his work.

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Not even crocodile tears. The tea baggers run amuck with the conch and exile Bennett. Mitt’s sermon is ignored. Utah goes ‘Lord of the Flies.’ We didn’t mind Bennett as a person. Gentle, courtly, polite. He always seemed slightly out of place in the Republican Senate Caucus under and after the Warlord.

But he earned his hard core right wing voting record. Worse, many of his jingoistic staffers went on to infect various lobbying organizations, executive positions. Bennett may be gone but *they* remain an intolerant, judgmental Rightist bacillus that infect this town (and prosper) with Boy King trumphant.

Bennett’s never been a social gadfly and part of the D.C. media circle jerk daisy chain. So his personal defenestration will be analyzed in the days ahead in more clinical, facile terms. Permanent Washington will mourn . . . in the press. Everyone is more concerned what it means for their own rear end.

Values Movement activists continue to loathe the libertarian Tea Partiers, Grover’s Wednesdays Meetings, Armey, etc. But expedience requires biting their tongues in public. They draw greater satisfaction at results: the Tea Party suppression of the Warsaw Moderate Uprising. First Snarlin’ Arlen chased out, then Crist. Now Bennett. But mark these words, Dear Readers, the Values Movement are merely sitting on the sidelines. They tell the Stiftung they look forward to putting the motely band of ‘libertarians’ and disaffected ‘Stalinist-Progressive-Democrats’ in their place. And the Rightist Catholics at least remember the 30 Years War.

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Who cares what happens to Newsweek?

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Obama obviously is not behind the Gulf catastrophe. If he were, he would have made a heavily publicized speech emphasizing zero tolerance for corporate incompetence/malfeasance. He would summon Americans to unite in non-partisan cooperation to combat oil spills in their communities, workplaces and churches. New regulations would ensure the disaster will never, ever, ever occur again. Now imagine Obama concludes by invoking the majesty of his office, promising the bad company will pay the full costs of making the people whole.

Events then meander in and out of focus for months. Media chase frantically the meaning of furtive glances exchanged among Senators Snowe, Collins or even Graham. Entire news cycles are devoted to whether any of them uttered a kind word about Obama’s initiative. The president’s political destiny we are told hangs in the balance. Oddly, although they are in the majority, Reid, Boxer (Environmental Committee) and others are minor players, shuffling awkwardly outside the Republican Caucus like high schoolers smitten with their first crushes. Day after day, month after month.

Finally, when Everyone knows Obama is doomed, Rahm cobbles together the absolute lowest common denominator vehicle and christens it ‘real reform’. In this case, the White House then pokes their wandering Democratic congressional majority to charge vigorously the microphone stand (Schumer needing no encouragement) Their excitement? An initiative which actually *pays* the bad actor — BP — for any inconvenience. In the hopes of winning Corker’s vote, Obama agrees to federalize efforts to regulate cooperation at the community level, in workplaces and at churches. In fact, every suggestion made by Snowe, Collins, Voinovich, Graham, Corker (and all the rest) are adopted in ‘bi-partisanship’.

All still vote against Obama. The Word Doctors provide them talking points, emphasizing Obama refused fair compensation to industry workforce for sleepless nights and trauma. Across talk radio Obama is blasted for his Leftist intransigence against additional tax credits. Rush trumpets the reasonableness of DeMint’s position that Obama must behead a mannequin of Hugo Chavez in primetime.

Faced with such a resounding ‘triumph’ Democrats do the talk show rounds cheerfully explaining that once the American people understood this accomplishment, everyone’s approval ratings will rise. Most write farewell cards to Harry Reid. Olbermann provides the sorbet with at least *2* ‘Special Comments’ celebrating Obama’s firm and unwaivering leadership. He makes the point that his family vacationed at a beach once. With voice quivering in outage recalling these treasured memories, Olbermann defiantly asks of McConnell, ‘How dare you, sir? How dare you?’

Republicans just continue their totalitarianism two-step in public while privately drawing grim satisfaction that their government-by-the-minority bluff remains intact. Again.

Dear Reader, that’s how we know Obama wasn’t involved.

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