The Nation sux as John Nichols drinks the Beto Kool-Aid

No other way to say it. Two hack pieces are the bottom lines on that. Both underscore the fact that The Nation is not even really left-liberal, and certainly not close to leftist.

The minor one is a total puff piece on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez "responding to her critics." There's not that much response and it's not about all critical comments.

The biggie is John Nichols, whom I've called out on Twitter before, claiming Beto O'Rourke supports single payer and otherwise totally chugging the Beto Kool-Aid.

No he doesn't John.

Beto is a ConservaDem who has in all three terms in the House, refused to cosponsor John Conyers' HR 676. He also went out of his way to say he couldn't back Bernie Sanders' weaker S. 1804. All this, plus the fact that Beto is among the most conservative one-third of Democratic House members and more conservative one-half of Texas House Democrats, as I have thoroughly documented, is all on the record.

Nichols also ignores that Beto's stances on the War on Drugs are all words and in the case of down-scheduling marijuana, have not translated into action.

He lets Beto blather about militarization while ignoring his district is home to Fort Bliss and that Beto has supported bringing home plenty of military bacon.

Contra Nichols, no, there's plenty that is mealy-mouthed about his campaign. And, lastly, with his "Clampdown" title, Nichols is playing on personality-driven, rather than issue-driven, politics.

I wouldn't subscribe to The Nation if it offered me a price of a dime an issue.

I mean, the mag has long done good work about the problems of America. I learned from it 20 years ago about the differences between American and European unemployment calculations and the reasons that matter.

But, it refuses to look outside the duopoly when talking about politicians and parties. And, to a lesser extent, before this became quite as big an issue for me, I'd busted its chops on this before, and one or two writers besides Nichols by name.