Month: June 2007
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Rethinking Scheiber on Hillary’s popularity
TNR’s Noam Scheiber is a great writer whose work I frequently cite. But his new online piece about Hillary Clinton’s appeal to downscale voters is, I think, too clever by half. In addition to taking for granted the questionable premise that Hillary is more experienced than Barack Obama, Scheiber offers an elaborate rationale for why
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Why did Duke settle with lacrosse players?
As a commenter noted last night, I haven’t posted anything about Mike Nifong being disbarred and removed from office as district attorney. I’m happy to see it happen; I just haven’t had anything to add to this point. I do have a question now, though. Why did the university reach a legal settlement with the
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Yglesias on immigration bill polling
Famous last words from Matthew Yglesias: Kaus notes that near the end of their most recent polling memo (PDF) Carville & Greenberg aren’t finding a ton of enthusiasm for the Senate compromise [on immigration]. It should be said, though, that the compromise with a description pulls about even. Without the description, it’s horribly unpopular. It
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Scalia debates the politics of “24”
Absurdity alert: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia cited the TV show “24” in a debate over constitutional protections and the war on terror (via Andrew Sullivan): Senior judges from North America and Europe were in the midst of a panel discussion about torture and terrorism law, when a Canadian judge’s passing remark – “Thankfully, security
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The Democratic guru primary
The guru primary is on! If you haven’t noticed, a flood of titles promising new ideas and solutions for Democrats and/or liberals have hit the shelves in the past year, including volumes from Chuck Schumer, Laura Flanders, Gary Hart, Bill Bradley, and Andy Stern (among others). In the next year, Paul Krugman, Todd Gitlin, Matthew
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Obama repudiates “D-Punjab” smear
Barack Obama has finally repudiated the nativist “D-Punjab” smear of Hillary Clinton that has infuriated the Indian American community (via a comment on my last post): Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama referred to as “stupid” and “caustic” his campaign’s memo last week that implied rival Hillary Clinton’s investments in India made the her fit to
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Pushback against Obama’s “D-Punjab” smear
Good news — Matthew Yglesias and other liberal bloggers may be ignoring the Barack Obama campaign’s nativist smear of Hillary Clinton as “D-Punjab,” but the Indian American community is pushing back very effectively: Members of the U.S.-India Political Action Committee were outraged. “For any candidate to imply there is something wrong with getting Indian-American support,
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McDonald’s fights the word “McJob”
Via PRwatch.org, the PR industry is now literally fighting to change the definition of words or to eliminate them from the dictionary. Time is reporting that McDonald’s has launched a campaign against “McJob” that follows in the footsteps of a potato industry campaign against “couch potato”: The late Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said that
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Misleading DOJ claim on voting rights
In All the President’s Spin, we showed how the Bush administration rarely engages in outright lying. Instead, they use technically true but misleading claims to spin the press in a more subtle — and effective — manner. Here’s an example of that tactic from a New York Times story last week on the changing priorities
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Tagg Romney’s Father’s Day gift
Here’s a Romney campaign email passed on by a friend — it sure tugs at the heartstrings: Dear [name], Father’s Day is coming up, and as the oldest of five sons, I feel responsible for making sure my Dad feels appreciated on his special day. This year, I had a particularly difficult time deciding how