Month: August 2005
-
What is Pete Stark talking about?
I think it’s a scandal that we don’t have universal health insurance in this country, but Congressman Pete Stark has gone off the deep end: We’re the only country in the world — not the only civilized country, not the only industrialized country, not the only non-third world country — we’re the only country in
-
The Why Tuesday campaign
As part of the debate over renewing the Voting Rights Act, a group called Why Tuesday is lobbying to move Election Day to a weekend to promote higher turnout. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Andrew Young lays out the rationale in an Atlanta Journal Constitution op-ed (registration required): Saturday marks the 40th anniversary of
-
Hillary and the pledge, contd.
As I mentioned before, Hillary’s refusal to pledge to serve out her next term is the perfect issue for Republicans to set up a narrative describing her as opportunistic. But she’s still holding out on the pledge against the wishes of 60 percent of New Yorkers. So why run again for the Senate? Why set
-
The lack of process stories on Bush’s unpopularity
One huge difference between the Clinton and Bush administrations is the way their poll numbers are covered in the press. When Clinton dipped in the polls, the media would inevitably write a slew of process stories about an administration in disarray, the need to change tactics, etc. But when Bush’s approval ratings drop to the
-
Stem cell initiatives: good politics, bad policy
Glenn Reynolds endorses Joan Vennochi’s call for state stem cell initiatives in the Boston Globe: A few years ago we saw a raft of anti-technology stuff… I notice now that we’re seeing more from the other side…. This confluence — together with poll data and other recent indicators — suggests to me that Joan Vennochi
-
John Kerry is not a popular guy
Losing a highly polarized election has turned John Kerry into a pariah. Republicans hate him because of what he stands for, and Democrats hate him for losing. A Gallup poll conducted July 25-28 (margin of error +/-3%) shows that even Hillary is substantially more popular than Kerry. I’ve never taken him seriously for 2008, but
-
The Paul Begala myth
James Taranto of Opinion Journal’s Best of the Web Today is the latest figure to tout the myth that Paul Begala accused Republicans of wanting to kill him. But as August J. Pollak showed, while Begala did switch between using the imprecise pronoun “they” to refer to Republicans and using it to refer to terrorists,
-
Manuel Miranda peddles the moral issues myth
Manuel Miranda, a conservative legal activist who was forced to resign from his position in the Senate after improperly accessing Democratic staff memos, repeats the myth that “moral issues” voters were the key factor in 2004: Then came 2003 and 2004, and another 10 judicial filibusters. Last November, Republican Senate candidates swept the South, ousted
-
Richard Posner vs. Richard Posner
First Alan Sokal, now Richard Posner? A few years ago, the judge — a prolific writer — published a book criticizing so-called “public intellectuals” for pontificating about issues outside their areas of expertise. Several reviewers pointed out that the poorly constructed book itself seemed to illustrate the problems that Posner purported to diagnose. But it
-
What is Brendan Miniter talking about?
Giving Brendans everywhere a bad name, OpinionJournal.com’s Brendan Miniter takes us to the land of conservative postmodernism: One trap Ms. [Maxine] Waters, Mr. Kerry and quite a few Democrats fell into was the idea that the war in Iraq was somehow separate from the war on terror. The American people never really believed that, as