Jun
19th
Thu
19th
Jun
18th
Wed
18th
Iraq, Still Inscrutable
“When it comes to Iraq, most Americans really want to leave, but they still don’t want to lose,” argues Michael Mandelbaum, author of “Democracy’s Good Name.” Navigating these conflicting moods and trends on the ground in Iraq is going to be one of the most excruciatingly difficult challenges ever handed from one president to another.
Jun
12th
Thu
12th
It's About Time!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Guantanamo Bay prisoners have the right to go before U.S. federal judges to challenge their years-long detention, handing a stinging setback to the Bush administration.
Jun
3rd
Tue
3rd
Congrats, Condolences, and Mom's
By all indications tonight, Barack Obama has secured the right to be the Democratic candidate for president of the United States. Senator Obama must be commended for running an intelligent campaign that took no states for granted (barring Michigan and Florida, which is another story completely). Senator Obama recognized at the beginning that this race would come down to delegate totals, and was very intelligent in creating a campaign that would allow him to reach the goal for nomination.
It is understandable that Senator Clinton and her supporters want to continue the fight, for they have fought hard. Senator Clinton must be commended for her tenacity in the face of circumstances that would have made others fade away. I am sure that there are huge regrets, but I have no doubt that her political career is far from over.
There has been a lot of coverage recently about the decline in the support of women of European descent for Senator Obama, primarily due to feelings that his campaign, the Democratic party apparatus, and the mainstream media have placed the gender card against Senator Clinton.
While there may have indeed been sexism at work at the local level (much of which remains unseen at the national level), I confess that I haven’t seen much if any of it from Obama himself, or his top level aides, even when Bill Clinton was making comments that certainly seemed on the surface to raise race as an issue. Why? Could it be his own legacy as the son of a divorced white woman? Would not his own personal relationship with his mother, a person who fought in the face of prevailing trends and made her own way, have some effect on his willingness to use gender as a weapon? As the son of a divorced white woman who parented a son to adulthood, I can say that my own attitudes toward sexism have been deeply affected by my own experience.
If you think that going over to McCain is the right thing to do, then go ahead. But before you do, think about what Obama’s mom might say if she were with us today.
Jun
2nd
Mon
2nd
If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can’t send that message. It’s an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal,” and “There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!
—
—George W. Bush
Enraged and Confused - The Opinionator - Opinion - New York Times Blog
May
28th
Wed
28th
Truth or Consequences
But the message going forward to every car buyer and carmaker would be this: The price of gasoline is never going back down. Therefore, if you buy a big gas guzzler today, you are locking yourself into perpetually high gasoline bills. You are buying a pig that will eat you out of house and home. At the same time, if you, a manufacturer, continue building fleets of nonhybrid gas guzzlers, you are condemning yourself, your employees and shareholders to oblivion
Former press secretary's book bashes Bush - Yahoo! News
But, McClellan said, Bush’s unwillingness to admit mistakes and belief in his own spin contributed to turning the president into “not quite the leader I once imagined him to be.” He faults Bush for a “lack of inquisitiveness” and “a degree of self-deception that may be psychologically necessary to justify the tactics needed to win the political game.” Bush “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment,” McClellan writes.
Dow: Country in "true energy crisis"; ups prices - Yahoo! News
“For years, Washington has failed to address the issue of rising energy costs and, as a result, the country now faces a true energy crisis, one that is causing serious harm to America’s manufacturing sector and all consumers of energy,” Chairman and Chief Executive Andrew Liveris said in a statement.
“The government’s failure to develop a comprehensive energy policy is causing U.S. industry to lose ground when it comes to global competitiveness, and our own domestic markets are now starting to see demand destruction throughout the U.S.”
May
23rd
Fri
23rd
Audit finds lax oversight in contractor payments - Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON - An internal audit of some $8 billion paid to U.S. and Iraqi contractors found that nearly every transaction failed to comply with federal laws or regulations aimed at preventing fraud, in some cases lacking even basic invoices explaining how the money was spent.