Month: December 2006
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Bush praises Bush via Ford
Peggy Noonan captures the dynamic of the posthumous praise of Gerald Ford pretty well in this passage: It is not clear who will speak at his funeral, but it is now unfortunately common practice for politicians to see every eulogy as an opportunity. Invited to reflect on biography, they tend to smuggle in as much
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New York Times sneers at “wingnuts”
I’m skeptical of simplistic theories of liberal media bias. It’s true that coverage of social conservatives is often unfair or condescending. However, it’s also true that elite news reporters skew conservative on economic issues. Similarly, I think journalists’ devotion to the cult of objectivity and focus on coverage of personalities and politics instead of substance
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Could Colin Powell have won the presidency?
Writing in the New York Times, guest columnist Orlando Patterson (a Harvard sociologist) claims without much justification that Colin Powell “stood a good chance of winning the presidency on the Republican ticket had he run”: A black man has led the world’s most powerful military machine and stood a good chance of winning the presidency
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DAs call for Nifong to give up Duke lacrosse case
In the wake of the ethics charges filed by the North Carolina State Bar, the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys is calling for Durham DA Mike Nifong to give up control of the Duke lacrosse case: The group, which represents district attorneys from across North Carolina, said in a statement that “it is in
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John McCain’s presidential proto-campaign
Has anyone noticed how aggressive John McCain’s allegedly exploratory presidential campaign is being? He’s sending fundraising appeals (PDF) and running Google ads already: The biography (PDF) on his exploratory site also offers some interesting clues to the stances he may take in the campaign. For instance, it does not mention the losing issue of private
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Ethics charges against Nifong
The North Carolina State Bar has hit Durham district attorney Mike Nifong with much-deserved ethics charges: The North Carolina bar filed ethics charges Thursday against the prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse sexual assault case, accusing him of saying misleading and inflammatory things to the media about the athletes under suspicion. The punishment for ethics violations
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Mirror-imaging in Bush commentary
It’s been amusing to see the confusion among pundits as President Bush has apparently decided to put more troops into Iraq rather than using the Iraq Study Group report as a pretext to move toward withdrawal. They shouldn’t be surprised. In each situation like this since Bush took office, he has done the opposite of
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The DeBrendanator
How much did I bother dogmatic liberals when I was blogging for The American Prospect? Some guy posted a computer script online called the DeBrendanator that automatically strips my posts out of TAP’s blog: DeBrendanator Description: Removes posts by Brendan Nyhan from prospect.org Written By: Mike J Tags: Brendan Nyhan prospect.org Horse’s Mouth Horse’s Ass
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Robert Reich advocates confiscatory taxation
We need to take steps to equalize opportunity in this country, which is plagued by a vicious combination of high income inequality and low income mobility. More and more Americans are recognizing that the status quo is unacceptable. But Robert Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, is taking the wrong approach