The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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Personal Information

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http://michaelwolraich.com
Biography

Michael Wolraich co-founded this little blog with a few friends back in 2008. After spending far too much time toying with internet trolls, he decided to become a writer because “writer” sounds cooler than “software freelancer” and way cooler than “founder of some blog that you’ve never heard of, and OK Zoomer, do you even know what a blog is?”

Under the naive impression that one can earn a living by writing books, Wolraich set about writing a book, and lo and behold, a publisher agreed to publish it. Indeed, as of 2025, with dagblog.com mere moments away from permanent hibernation, Wolraich has published three whole books, some of which have even been reviewed, nay praised, by respectable newspapers that start with the word “The.”

Wolraich has also published pieces at various highfalutin media outlets like Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, TIME Magazine, New York Magazine, CNN.com, Reuters, and Talking Points Memo—the blog that inspired the whole dagblog thing in the first place, so you can blame Josh Marshall for all that has happened since.

Wolraich is also the computer genius who maintains (or rather maintained) dagblog’s state-of-the-art software, but he denies responsibility for technical glitches and advises users to “quit sniveling.” In his spare time, Wolraich raises peach mold and performs live impressions of the law of gravity while referring to himself in the third person.

Anyway, here are the books, in case you’re curious. Please consider purchasing several thousand copies of each. (Warning, the last one is a mouthful. Alas, Wolraich did not get to choose the title.)

THE BISHOP AND THE BUTTERFLY: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age (Union Square & Co., 2024, Edgar Allen Poe Award finalist)

UNREASONABLE MEN: Theodore Roosevelt and the Republican Rebels Who Created Progressive Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)

BLOWING SMOKE: Why the Right Keeps Serving Up Whack-Job Fantasies about the Plot to Euthanize Grandma, Outlaw Christmas, and Turn Junior into a Raging Homosexual (Da Capo Press, 2010)

Michael Wolraich's picture

What really happened in Canada...

Many of you may have read the story about how Ian Brodie, chief of staff to the Canadian Prime Minister said that a Clinton representative had downplayed Hillary's Nafta comments to the Canadian embassy: "He said someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry."

Topics: 
Politics
Humor & Satire
Michael Wolraich's picture

Another doctored Obama photo?

The latest ad from the Clinton campaign includes yet another photo that some liberal bloggers suspect as having been doctored. Clinton campaign spokesman Jay Carson said, "this is a bogus assertion.
Ads look different based on software, screens, computers, television,
etc."

I'm no photoshop expert, but I think that this one is pretty clear. Judge for yourself:

Topics: 
Politics
Humor & Satire
Michael Wolraich's picture

Mike Gravel should drop out after Tuesday

I have no problem with Mike Gravel. He's run a fine race, and his innovative ad campaign will be studied by strategists for years to come. The one with the rock broke ground never before broken by any candidate and likely never to be broken again, unless he runs in 2012. The mental image of his determined stare still gives me goosebumps. I also appreciate his important contributions to the Democratic debates, though I don't really remember them. But if I remembered them, I'm sure that I would appreciate them. It's not my fault that I wasn't paying attention.

Topics: 
Politics
Humor & Satire
Michael Wolraich's picture

Who's Afraid of the Kitchen Sink?

Most of you have probably scene this quote from today's Times:

Topics: 
Politics

Who's Afraid of the Kitchen Sink?

Most of you have probably scene this quote from today's Times:

Michael Wolraich's picture

4 Nader Myths

When Nader announced his candidacy yesterday, I expected a stream of Nader-hate to come down the TPM wire, and there was certainly plenty of that. I did not, however, expect the eruption of Nader support that followed. I had been under the impression that, other than a few kooky left-wingers, everyone who supported Nader in 2000 had come to regret it. But here were TPM posters, young and old, with whom I had been bantering the last few months over the relative merits of Obama, Clinton, and Edwards, defending Nader's candidacy.

Topics: 
Politics
Michael Wolraich's picture

Report: Clinton Campaign May Try To Poison Obama's Pledged Delegates

The Hillary Clinton campaign has reportedly thought up a new strategy for winning the Democratic nomination that is even more divisive than the super-delegate route: Poisoning Obama's elected delegates so that they cannot appear at the convention. "I swear it is not happening now, but as we get closer to the convention, if it is a stalemate, everybody will be going after everybody’s delegates," a senior campaign official told the Politico. "All the rules will be going out the window."

Topics: 
Politics
Humor & Satire
Michael Wolraich's picture

If a candidate picked you up at a bar...

This post started as a comment, but due to popular demand, it's getting its own post. (Does one request constitute popular demand?) Much ado has been made in recent years about which presidential candidate voters would prefer to have a beer with, but we all know that beer buddiness is a poor measure of electability. I love my beer buddies, but I wouldn't vote any of them for city council, let alone president.

Topics: 
Politics
Humor & Satire
Michael Wolraich's picture

Overestimating McCain

Due to his experience, military record, media popularity, reputation as a straightshooter, and appeal among independents, McCain is regarded a strong contender for the Presidency in 2008, and he may well be, but it's too early to know. We can speculate endlessly about what attributes are most important to voters and how McCain's strengths and weaknesses match up against those of Obama and Clinton, but it's mostly guesswork. In this post, I will instead focus on McCain's record. Not his voting record, his campaign record.

Topics: 
Politics

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