Politics
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What Now?
What can be realistically expected? I think there are two basic scenarios: 1. Obama will be Bill Clinton, version 2, and we'll have business as usual but done a little more competently and pragmatically than during the Bush years. 2. Obama will be a transformational candidate like FDR, JFK and Reagan. 3. Obama will reveal
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Turning the Page
This is a good day for America and so promising for its future. I'm struggling to find an apt way to put what I'm feeling. I'm not as articulate about it as I'd like, because I don't quite grasp it as something fully formed in my mind. But it's as if the fever with its
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Contractarians and Beehives
By way of Ross Douthat I have come across this very interesting 2007 post in Edge by psychologist Jonathan Haidt in which he argues that there are five fundamental moral stances in any society. I remember being quasi aware of it at the time it came out, but for some reason didn't grok it. There
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Redfining the American Dream
"The income gap between the rich and the rest of the U.S. population has become so wide, and is growing so fast, that it might eventually threaten the stability of democratic capitalism itself," then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in 2005. WaPo Obama's appeal to the middle class is an appeal to the "the proletariat,"
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Far Left/Far Right
CNN's Campbell Brown in her interview on The Daily Show earlier this week described her new show, "No Bias, No Bull" as trying to fill the center space left between her time-slot competitors the "far-right" Bill O'Reilly and the "far-left" Keith Olbermann. Stewart seemed to think her far left/far right characterization of these two apt.
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Republican Intellectuals
Look- the intellectual wing of the Republican party is dead. What is left are brain-dead acolytes spreading meaningless and simplistic anecdotes, trite stories, and distilled nonsense passed on that has a more fitting home in AM radio. The McCain campaign, once again, is just a symptom of the real problem- an intellectually incurious and lazy
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Obama Interview with Maddow
I've reached a point where I've become constitutionally incapable of listening to anythng any politician has to say at this point. talking. Nevertheless, I found myself watching this interview tonight, and It broke through all the sound blockers I've set up. And I found it encouraging for some reason. I don't know. Maybe I'm just
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What Do Conservatives Have to Fear from a Dem Govt.?
Unlike past Democrat presidential candidates, Obama is a hardened ideologue. He's not interested in playing around the edges. He seeks "fundamental change," i.e., to remake society. And if the Democrats control Congress with super-majorities led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, he will get much of what he demands. Mark Levin Maybe guys like Levin
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Garry Wills on the Unitary Executive
Why a McCain win would cause me to lose hope: court appointments. Liberals are foolish to be obsessed about Roe; they should be more concerned about this deeper and more far-reaching issue. I'm surprised there isn't more discussion of it. From the New York Review of Books: When Charles Gibson was questioning Governor Palin, he
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Shrewd as Serpents, Guileless as Doves
I was going to write something about Republicans and their absurd campaign to accuse the Dems of voter fraud and how the fabric of Democracy is in jeopardy, not because of the long list of things that the Bush administration has perpetrated but because of ACORN?! But who cares at this point? I'm just going