Politics
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Quote of the Day
Should a Democrat win the White House in 2008, no doubt many conservative proponents of the theory of autocracy known as the “unitary executive” will awaken as from a dream, and revert to the belief that unlimited power vested in the hands of a president might not be quite compatible with our democratic heritage. Or
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A Presumption of Carelessness
I've been tempted on a few occasions to write yet again about the Dubai deal, and what really bugs me about it. And yes, I have to admit, that there at the bottom of my opposition to it is a bias that presumes incompetence on the part of this administration. An incompetence born of carelessness.
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More on Dubai Ports Deal
The defenders of this deal make an argument that comes down to this: anyone who thinks this is a bad deal is racist. Arabs can run our ports as well as, say, the Chinese. We’re living in a global economy–a flat world as TF is won to say. This is how it works. Stop being
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The Elephant in the Room
Imagine a scenario in which Karl Marx, Ronald Reagan, and an American journalist are in the room. There's also an elephant, which is owned by Ronald Reagan. Karl Marx points out that there is an elephant in the room. Ronald Reagan, who has his reasons, says there is no elephant. He then looks at the
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Dubya’s Dubious Dubai Deal
One of the world historical snow jobs perpetrated by the GOP on the American people is that the Republicans are more trustworthy on matters of national security and ficscal responsibility, and that they are the party of the morally serious grownups. If you voted for Bush rather than Kerry or Gore, ask yourself: Do you
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The Spirit of Whiggery
One of the things I'm trying to do is to think through for myself a critique of the American political and economic system that isn't dependent on Marxism. The Marxist critique, no matter how trenchant, will always be perceived as un-American. It's always going to be associated with the secular left, which, whether its members
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The South Gets the Last Laugh
I've been tough on the Puritans in recent posts, but I'd like to put in a good word for the historical Puritans, those Whiggish, crusty revolutionaries who had a passion to establish a country inspired by religious and republican ideals. One could argue that the English Puritans were the first real moderns in the political
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Getting Intexicated
What is it about Texas that is so toxic? Don’t mess with Texas?! What sane person would want to? It’s enough of a mess already. It borders on Mexico and seems to emulate its third-world, poltical style. I just wish it wouldn’t export its mess to the rest of the country, which is what the
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What to Do
The best lack all convictions, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. WB Yeats I was talking to a friend lately about how bad things had gotten for our country under the Bush administration. He is a Vietnam vet who voted for Gore but tried to be positive as positive as he could about
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A Call for Impeach-ins
Jamie B. Raskin, a professor of Constitutional Law at American University has some creative ideas about how to take back our democracy: We obviously need a strategy to close the gap between citizen Democrats, who see impeachment proceedings as a moral imperative for the return of democratic legitimacy, and congressional Democrats, who see impeachment as