Quotation Of the Day: Politics As Cult Edition

From this John Avalon commentary at The Daily Beast:

At a time when our politics is looking like a cult, there is no tolerance for principled dissent. Dissent is disloyalty and punishable by either the threat of excommunication or electoral execution.

Descriptions of and discussions about the South Dakota version of the principle Avalon enunciates can be found here.

Quotation And Political Ad Of The Day

Conor Friedersdorf writes,

If there's any part of the political process that's especially deserving of mockery, it's televised campaign commercials. If Colbert's satire causes more American voters to take them less seriously, it'll be a significant civic contribution. 

Friedersdorf fails to note the Star Wars nod in the ad's title:  "Episode IV: A New Hope." I also love the visual allusion to the "it was a dark and stormy night," an all-time classic bad intro sentence.

I admire Colbert's ability to use pop culture to skewer political ads and something that should be a political non-event.