[ Posted Friday, July 4th, 2008 – 13:09 UTC ]
I'd like to address, in as patriotic spirit as can be mustered, the wearing of United States flag lapel pins, and the inherent silliness this debate represents. Flag lapel pins are all the rage these days, but the battle over wearing the flag is older than you may have thought. Older than the battles in Congress over flag-desecration amendments to the Constitution (which stretch back to the 1980s... and which even Democrats who should know better still occasionally vote for in Congress... ahem).
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[ Posted Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 – 14:40 UTC ]
At the very least, it would be worth pointing out what we could face if we (or Israel) attacks Iran. An unnamed oil market analyst on NBC last night put the price of a barrel of oil after an attack on Iran as "name your price," and then went further with "$300, $400 a barrel." Put in perspective, this would be around $10.00 to $13.50 per gallon to fill up your car. If your tank held 15 gallons, this would cost you from $150 up to almost two hundred dollars for a single fill-up.
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[ Posted Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 – 16:13 UTC ]
As we enter the long summer days of the general election, the tradition in American politics is for the candidates to run as hard as they can to the vaunted "middle of the road." What this may mean is that by Election Day, the foreign policy positions on Iraq of John McCain and Barack Obama are going to get a lot closer and indeed may be different mainly in philosophy (rather than in substance) by November.
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[ Posted Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 – 15:53 UTC ]
And that is my point -- there is no proof. Because John McCain refuses to let the press and the public see it. And that, to me, is an issue worth exploring in someone who is trying to get elected president.
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[ Posted Monday, June 30th, 2008 – 15:30 UTC ]
For the first time in the general election campaign, I am ready to take a look at the electoral map and do some electoral math. Now, we're still pretty far out from Election Day, so likely any of these guesses will be laughably wrong when it rolls around. But we've got to start somewhere.
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[ Posted Friday, June 27th, 2008 – 17:14 UTC ]
This column was born out of my frustration with the seeming inability of many Democrats to perform well in the Sunday morning interview shows on television. It's often been said that Democrats have an inherent "herding cats" problem, so I set out to do my tiny part to help.
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 – 15:22 UTC ]
George Bush's term in office will be remembered for the precedents it set, particularly in relation to the power of the presidency, and the separation of powers between the three branches of American government. Vice President Dick Cheney has been at the forefront of this effort to "restore power" to the presidency, which he believes was unjustly taken from the office in the aftermath of Richard Nixon and Watergate.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 – 12:54 UTC ]
When history books are written in the future, some of them will doubtlessly include this footnote: "As George W. Bush left office with the lowest approval ratings of any president in the history of taking such measurements, the citizens of the city of San Francisco chose to honor him by renaming a waste treatment plant on the day he left office." Think about it -- San Franciscans could memorialize George W. Bush, forever, with every flush of the toilet.
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[ Posted Friday, June 20th, 2008 – 15:53 UTC ]
Anyone who thinks that the treatment Barack Obama has gotten from the media during this campaign is remotely the same as the treatment John McCain has received just has not been paying much attention. Because this pro-McCain prejudice has been both pervasive and unremarked-upon throughout almost the entire news media during the entire campaign season. McCain has even joked that the media is "his base" of support. It was a funny line, but there is an enormous truth at its core: the media has been hard on Obama but unbelievably light on John McCain. And this has to stop. Now. Because the election might just hinge on the media's portrayal of the two, so now is the time to point out the uneven nature of the press coverage to date on the two candidates. In time for the mainstream media to correct itself before the general election season really heats up.
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[ Posted Thursday, June 19th, 2008 – 16:50 UTC ]
Come to think of it, if anything in Cindy's past were part of Michelle's life history, I would bet my bottom dollar that we'd have heard about it by now. Over and over and over again. This is called "media bias," and it deserves to be spotlighted immediately.
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