Month: October 2006
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Variety analyzes South Korea’s strategy
It’s good to see that Variety has kept the alleged North Korean nuclear test in perspective: Seems that vaulting ambition is a hot item common to Koreans, both North and South. North of the border the aim is to join the select club of countries able to scare the hell out of their neighbors through
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Myths about redistricting
Kevin Drum makes a point about the overstated effects of redistricting that I’ve been meaning to address: Is gerrymandering responsible for the fact that it’s virtually impossible nowadays to defeat an incumbent in the House of Representatives? Reporters and pundits seem to accept this without question, but academic research suggests otherwise. For example, Alan Abramowitz,
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Power Line suggests Jimmy Carter is a traitor
In a post today, Power Line’s Paul Mirengoff suggests that Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States and a former naval officer, is a traitor: Ted Turner said the other day that he had trouble making up his mind which side he supports in the war on terror. If Turner has struggled with
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Pete Hoekstra still looking for WMD
Apparently unembarassed by the spectacle of Vice President Cheney’s aides sending coordinates of alleged weapons caches directly to David Kay, Rep. Pete Hoekstra is still looking for the non-existent Iraqi WMDs that have become his white whale: House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Peter Hoekstra is still pressing U.S. intelligence agencies to look for possible weapons
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Carlos Gutierrez has a lot of free time
What do you do when you’re a powerless cabinet secretary in a highly centralized administration? Go to book fairs! Here’s something you don’t see every day: a prominent cabinet member standing in line for an hour outside to collect an author’s autograph. But that’s exactly what Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez did this month during the
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Bush ratings not lowest ever
Dan Froomkin makes a puzzling claim today, writing that “President Bush’s approval ratings appear to be dropping to their lowest levels ever.” But a quick look at Charles Franklin’s running tabulation of all presidential approval polls on Political Arithmetik shows that this is not the case, though the trend has turned sharply downward:
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Bush vs. his economists IV
Via Brad DeLong, here’s important news that was ignored by the national press. In an interview with the Washington Times last week, Council of Economic Advisers chair Ed Lazear and Office of Management and Budget director Rob Portman admitted that President Bush’s tax cuts have reduced federal revenue: In an interview with editors and reporters
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ABC’s Charlie Gibson fails Econ 101
Via Romenesko, here’s a hilarious item in which ABC’s Charlie Gibson, the anchor of “World News Tonight,” fails to grasp why there are so many ads targeting old people on his show: Want younger viewers for the evening news? Ditch the geezer ads, says ABC World News anchor Charlie Gibson. If networks are serious about
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Back from travel
Apologies for light posting; more soon…
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Sabato didn’t hear alleged Allen slurs
Randall Kennedy of Harvard Law School suggests in a New Republic article that Prof. Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia is one of those accusing Sen. George Allen of using the “N-word”: [Allen] has been accused of repeatedly referring to blacks as “niggers” during his college years in the 1970s… Allen does not deny