Month: November 2008
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Sarah Palin = Yoda?
TNR’s Noam Scheiber has an amusing post on the grammatical similarities between Sarah Palin and Yoda: [H]ere's something I can't resist–an outtake from Palin's recent publicity tour that the Times highlights today: Ms. Palin used the term “Sarah-centric” to describe her campaign rallies, arguing that fans were responding to her more as a symbol than
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Paul Broun stands by Obama/Hitler rhetoric
Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), who compared President-elect Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler in seemingly record time for a member of Congress, has released a statement that largely defends his words. On the other hand, Broun did semi-apologize for calling Obama a “Marxist” in a local talk radio interview [MP3] — he actually just thinks Obama
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Hatch dissembles on Obama’s agenda
Senator Orrin Hatch has written a NRSC fundraising email that misrepresents Barack Obama’s position on the Fairness Doctrine and defense spending (ellipses in original): Barack Obama and MoveOn.org need Jim Martin to seize complete control of government. And to thank them, Martin has promised to rubberstamp Obama’s far-left agenda… … Liberal activist Supreme Court justices,
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Tracking Obama hatred: Hitler comparisons
It’s worth noting just how quickly Barack Obama is being compared to Adolf Hitler compared to past presidents. Call it the Hitler index of political polarization. During the campaign, numerous conservative pundits likened Obama to the Nazi dictator, including Jonah Goldberg, Ann Coulter, and Ben Stein. But it’s still shocking to see that a member
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Worst post-election column ever
There’s been a lot of dumb post-election commentary, but it’s hard to believe that Patrick Goldstein attempted to determine the significance of Obama’s victory using the box office performance of “Soul Men”: ‘Soul Men’ delivers mixed verdict on Obama victory Over the past few days, everyone has been offering words of wisdom about what Barack
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Summers distortions circulating again
With former Clinton Treasury Secretary and Harvard President Larry Summers under consideration as a possible Treasury Secretary in the Obama administration, various distortions of his controversial comments about gender are popping back up. For instance, John Heilemann wrote the following in New York Magazine: [National Organization for Women president Kim] Gandy told the Huffington Post
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Obama’s standing: High faves + ugly smears
I’ve been wondering whether John McCain poisoned the well for Barack Obama by inspiring the conservative base to loathe him with Clintonesque fervor. As I noted in my last post, Obama has historically high favorable ratings but also has approximately 25% of the country that is “afraid” as a result of his election and strongly
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Presidents don’t “rule,” they “govern”
Like this blogger at Newsbusters.org, I cringed when Obama transition co-chair Valerie Jarrett said on “Meet the Press” that Obama is “prepared to … begin to rule day one”: [G]iven, really, the daunting challenges that we face, it’s important that President-elect Obama is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one. In
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Does Obama need a “mandate”?
I want to clarify my claim last night that Republicans in Congress will not dramatically shift their voting patterns in response to a perceived Obama mandate. A friend correctly pointed out to me by email that a mandate response isn’t necessary for Obama to change the legislative status quo. What mattters is the configuration of
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Election myths and the mandate debate
I’ve been too sick and busy with teaching and research to try to fact-check all the election interpretations out there, so let me recommend the excellent “Truths and Myths about the 2008 Election” series by John Sides of GW and The Monkey Cage, which distills the relevant political science for a general audience: 1. The