John Dickerson: Is Tired of Politicians’ Propaganda: "I just interviewed Mitt Romney at the Aspen Ideas Festival...

...and I asked him a couple of questions or a series of questions about his dad--his hero --who had been part of the Stop Goldwater movement. I like those. There’s the human side of people who are in public life that connects people. Whether it’s favorable or unfavorable, it gives them some connection with the person who’s onstage, and I think those connections are edifying...

And two paragraphs later:

When Hillary Clinton tells the story of her mother’s grit, it all may be true, but it’s obviously self-serving. If you can excavate new and interesting stuff from politicians that’s not a part of the freeze-dried, prepackaged, soft-focus propaganda that politicians put out, if you can fight past all of that and get to what you think is a true thing, then I like trying to do that...

And Scott Lemieux: The Abject Uselessness of Theater Critic Punditry: "As always, it is 100% undiluted tautology...

...To me, the unmatched champion if the genre will always be Jacob Weisberg’s iTunes analysis, arguing that George W. Bush’s mainstream musical tastes were the kind of rugged, authentic tastes you’d like to have a beer with and Hillary Clinton’s mainstream musical tastes were calculating and inauthentic and phony. If the lists of music had been precisely reversed he would have written exactly the same column with the artist/song names changed.

Here's Weinberg's dumpster fire:

Jacob Weisberg: The politics of iPod playlists: "[Hillary Clintob] has the Beatles and the Rolling Stones on the white iPod that her husband gave her for a birthday present...

...along with Motown and classical music. She then rattled off a list of songs: the Beatles 'Hey Jude,' Aretha Franklin's, 'Respect,' the Eagles 'Take It to the Limit,' and U2's 'Beautiful Day.' Hillary Clinton is the least spontaneous of politicians, and this playlist suggests premeditation, if not actual poll-testing. She first indicates that she basically likes everything before coming to roost on classic rock and soul, which any baby boomer must identify with, lest she or he be branded terminally uncool. Hillary avoids, however, anything too racy, druggie, or aggressive, while naming tunes that are empowering and inspirational. On the world-is-divided-into-two-kinds-of-people question 'the Beatles or the Stones,' she, like her husband, finds a middle path: both. She names no Stones songs and chooses a consensus, universally liked, neither-early-nor-late Beatles tune, 'Hey Jude'....

Condi... show[s] that she is not as uptight as she sometimes seems. In addition to Brahms, Mozart, and Mussorgsky, she reveals that she likes to work out to Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" and loves "anything by U2." Aretha Franklin's "Respect" gets another vote, along with Kool and the Gang's "Celebration," and Elton John's "Rocket Man"....

[George W. Bush] "My Sharona" by the Knack, "Centerfield" by John Fogerty, "Brown-Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison, and music by the honky-tonk singer George Jones. Unlike Hillary and Condi, this all sounds pretty uncalculated. Bush doesn't worry about being politically correct or care what other people think of him. He likes to listen to white guys singing country and rock and doesn't care if Jerry Falwell objects to some of the lyrics...