Month: October 2005
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Condolences to Dan Drezner
I just read the sad news that Daniel Drezner, a leading scholar-blogger, was denied tenure by the University of Chicago’s political science department. For me, the decision raises two big concerns. First, as commenters at Drezner’s blog pointed out, the mentoring system at Chicago failed. Drezner wrote that he was “genuinely surprised” by the news;
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Harriet Miers: A well-qualified nominee
Intellectual giants of the Court. Harriet Miers: “[Miers] also found [Governor Bush] ‘cool,’ [and] said he and his wife, Laura, were ‘the greatest!’” …”Ms. Miers wrote to thank the Bushes, saying,’Texas has a very popular governor and first lady!’” …”Ms. Miers wrote to thank [Bush] ‘for taking the time to visit in the office and
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Dick Morris’ book-selling whoredom
Dick Morris has kept himself afloat by becoming a professional Clinton-basher, but this quote from his new book Condi vs. Hillary (co-authored with his wife) is especially pathetic: If elected, Clinton would “reinvent what we have called the secret police to destroy those who stand in her way.” Apparently Halloween has come early. Watch out
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Postmodern anti-US agitprop in Venezeula
Here’s a snapshot from the strange world of 21st century politics in Venezuela, where left-wing dictator Hugo Chavez is hyping the possibility of a US assassination attempt against him: Bush administration officials may not hide their distaste for Mr. Chávez – that, everyone agrees, is a big part of the problem – but American officials
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Bush’s penchant for straw men
If you read All the President’s Spin closely, you’ll be astonished at the Bush administration’s love for straw men. Here’s a great example from President Bush’s speech on Iraq yesterday: Some have also argued that extremism has been strengthened by the actions of our coalition in Iraq, claiming that our presence in that country has
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Claire Buchan gets the smackdown
The New Republic’s valuable guide to the Bush hackocracy has a particularly brutal take on Claire Buchan, a former White House “spokesbot” who was made chief of staff of the Department of Commerce, from a reporter who worked with her: Some of Buchan’s erstwhile colleagues in the White House press corps were left speechless when
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What is Al Gore talking about?
Al Gore gave a thoughtful speech on the media and democracy today that was marred by this paragraph: The present executive branch has made it a practice to try and control and intimidate news organizations: from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. They placed a former male escort in the White House press pool to pose
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Bush propaganda ruled illegal by GAO
In a little-noticed development last week, the Government Accountability Office, an independent government watchdog, ruled that the Bush administration’s “covert propaganda” efforts are illegal: Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush’s education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams
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Richard Clarke on homeland security spending
Despite all the posturing and rhetoric, this administration has simply failed to make us safer at home — here are some disturbing statistics from Richard Clarke’s Atlantic column this month (subscription required): [T]he Bush administration simply dislikes spending money on many domestic initiatives, in contrast to its open-ended attitude toward military outlays and expeditions. Of
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Matthew Continetti goes off the reservation
The anti-Bush/DeLay conservative underground continues to go public. The latest dissident to follow in the footsteps of David Brooks, David Frum, Bruce Bartlett and many others is Matthew Continetti of the Weekly Standard, who published a scathing New York Times op-ed about the state of conservatism on Saturday: Young conservatives in particular will react to