Month: March 2005
-
What is the Wall Street Journal talking about?
In an editorial about labor threats to pull their penson funds from investment firms that support privatization, the Wall Street Journal offers this inane criticism: The problems with all this are many, starting with a rich irony: Unions are using the clout they’ve acquired from investing in the stock market to oppose a plan to
-
What is Rich Karlgaard talking about?
Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today analyzing Silicon Valley politics, a subject near and dear to my heart since I grew up in Mountain View, which is right in the heart of the Silicon Valley and home to Google, Netscape, etc. Karlgaard makes one very strange claim —
-
Deborah Solomon is harsh
Do Deborah Solomon’s interviews in the New York Times Magazine make anyone else uncomfortable? (She does the “Questions for…” feature that runs near the front.) They’re exceptionally harsh — to the point that I think of British political culture, where journalists are far more confrontational than here. I want a more aggressive press corps, but
-
More stupid “nuclear option” rhetoric from MoveOn
MoveOn.org sent the latest installment (PDF) in the liberal clown show attacking the “nuclear option” to their members last Thursday. (For past installments in this series, click here.) The opening passage gives you a flavor for the level of idiocy: Radical Republicans are reaching for absolute power to appoint Supreme Court justices who favor corporate
-
Bush approval dropping
Has anyone noticed? Social Security is dragging down President Bush’s numbers: President Bush’s job approval slipped into the mid 40s in national polls released this week as he lost some support among men and other groups of core supporters. Public approval for Bush slipped from 52 percent in a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll over the weekend
-
The moderate party fantasy
Andrew Sullivan’s “email of the day” yesterday is another party-creation fantasy: EMAIL OF THE DAY: “As I read through yesterday’s emails, I am struck by the possible fruitfulness of moderate Republican conservatives joining forces with similar folks in the Democratic Party. Perhaps if we leave the extremists of both parties out on their respective limbs
-
What is Robert Samuelson talking about? (part II)
A classic expression of centrist Washington “pain causus” thinking from Robert Samuelson, who uses his description of social insurance as “welfare” to justify yet another argument for vast cuts in Medicare and Social Security: We are a nation of closet welfare junkies, which helps explain why we can’t have an honest debate about Social Security.
-
What is Michael Eric Dyson talking about? (Bill Cosby edition)
My always-sharp wife
-
Someone noticed…
…. (1) that private accounts are dead: “Bush’s First Defeat” (Jacob Weisberg, Slate) George W. Bush’s plan to remake the Social Security system is kaput. This is not a value judgment.It’s a statement of political fact. In the months since the president first presented the idea as his top domestic priority, Democrats in Congress have