Month: June 2005
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Worrying about contemporary conservatism
With conservatism becoming increasingly decadent, I worry for the future of America. I worry, like Ben Adler, that true economic conservatism has been lost to a crude pro-corporate mindset: In yesterday’s New York Times, Jason DeParle writes about the Heritage Foundation’s cushy summer internship program for young conservative activists and intellectuals. One sentence in particular
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Mike Allen and Michael A. Fletcher tout bogus White House figures
In a Washington Post story on President Bush’s speech at a Republican fundraiser Tuesday, Mike Allen and Michael A. Fletcher repeat a classic misleading Bush administration statistic: Bush said he has “laid out some plans that would nearly fix all of the Social Security problem.” The White House has said the plans he has outlined
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Bill Frist squanders his chances for 2008
Despite GOP delusions to the contrary, Bill Frist has never been an attractive presidential candidate. He’s an awkward patrician who was elected to office with the help of family connections (sound like any other senators from Tennessee?). But I still can’t believe how foolishly he’s squandered his one selling point: his medical expertise. The stories
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Government propaganda watch: Dept. of Agriculture
CJR Daily, which has played a key role in watchdogging the Bush administration’s use of deceptive “video news releases,” has picked up a Chicago Tribune report about more than 30 new VNRs from the Dept. of Agriculture promoting CAFTA. Even after Karen Ryan and Armstrong Williams, this issue will not go away. When will the
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Why Arnold is calling a special election
Kevin Drum comments on Arnold’s motivation for calling a special election in California: [W]e’re having an election next June anyway, and it’s unlikely that any of Schwarzenegger’s initiatives will have even a slight effect in the intervening seven months. Why not wait and save the $50 million or so the special election will cost? Personal
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Admitting that you’re pulling a Lakoff
I’ve helped to document the pernicious influence of lefty language guru George Lakoff in All the President’s Spin and on this blog. But I never expected the Democrats to be so stupid when they try to use Lakoff’s flawed ideas for reframing policy debates. Both Howard Dean and now Phil Angelides have recently engaged in
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“Popular president” unpopular — except with Chris Matthews
On June 7, Eric Alterman wrote this on his Altercation blog: This just in: The new ABC News/Washington Post poll, here, shows 52 percent of Americans disapprove of the job President Bush is doing overall, reports ABC News’ Polling director Gary Langer — the most in more than 75 ABC/Post polls since his presidency began.
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What is Jeffrey Rosen talking about?
Writing in the New York Times, Jeffrey Rosen makes a strange argument: Yet even as interest groups were bemoaning the fact that a handful of centrists had narrowly prevented the Senate from blowing itself up [with the deal averting the nuclear option], the country as a whole was applauding the compromise. An independent poll conducted
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The Richmond Times-Dispatch on George Allen’s racial history
Ah ha! According to Google News, the Washington Post and New York Times aren’t alone in putting the anti-lynching resolution in the context of George Allen’s ugly history on racial issues — here’s the report from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, one of Allen’s home state papers: An Allen presidential campaign could spotlight the apology resolution if
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Atrios on a misleading Annenberg poll
Atrios notes a strange Annenberg poll that is written up in a completely misleading way by the AP: Is Annenberg This Stupid? Read this: WASHINGTON (AP) — About 40 percent of Americans say they consider talk show host Bill O’Reilly a journalist – more than would define famed Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward the same