[ Posted Monday, February 6th, 2012 – 16:31 UTC ]
Mitt Romney's gaffe last week (reproduced in full, above) is going to wind up the "gaffe that keeps on giving" for Barack Obama and the Democrats in this election cycle. Because the more Romney's comment is examined and dissected, the worse it looks for him. This could, in fact, be the defining moment for Mitt Romney as a national political presence. That phrase is often bandied about in politics, but I use it here in the full literal sense of "defining moment" -- a point in time which absolutely cements an image in the public mind of who you are and what you stand for as a politician. The image, quite obviously, is not a good one for Romney.
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[ Posted Friday, January 27th, 2012 – 17:27 UTC ]
Well, that was an eventful week in politics, wasn't it?
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[ Posted Monday, January 16th, 2012 – 18:07 UTC ]
[Program Note: I am taking the day off today. But I did want to post this link to a transcript of Martin Luther King Junior's "Drum Major Instinct" speech. This is the speech that was misquoted on his new memorial in Washington D.C., and you really have to read the speech itself to [...]
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 11th, 2012 – 18:09 UTC ]
Two hundred and thirty-six years ago this week, a pamphlet was published in Philadelphia. There is some disagreement among historians over the exact date (variously given as January 9th or 10th), and the pamphlet's title page itself only lists the year, 1776. Whatever the actual date, though, Thomas Paine's Common Sense hit the American consciousness like a bombshell -- one which would reverberate for years to come.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 10th, 2012 – 18:55 UTC ]
What struck me about New Hampshire's contest, being in the midst of historical research into such things, was the old-school nature of the Union Leader, a very conservative New Hampshire newspaper. It struck a lot of the media as interesting as well, but I didn't see anyone else commenting on such historical context.
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[ Posted Friday, December 30th, 2011 – 17:25 UTC ]
It's that time of year again -- when we turn our eyes to Lake Superior State University (in beautiful Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan), and their official list of this year's banished words.
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[ Posted Friday, December 16th, 2011 – 18:36 UTC ]
As always, if you disagree with any (or all) of my picks, feel free to make your own in the comments. The categories are completely open to interpretation, and don't forget that there will be a "Part 2" column next week, so I can likely squeeze things I forgot in there.
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[ Posted Wednesday, December 14th, 2011 – 17:05 UTC ]
But just because the modern-day "War on Christmas" may not, in fact, exist does not mean that such a war never existed in America. The subject of Christmas was indeed at the heart of a previous bitter political dispute, but you've got to go pretty far back in time to find it. All the way back to the New England Puritans.
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[ Posted Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011 – 17:33 UTC ]
It's all bunkum, of course. America has always enjoyed a rousing good political fight, and our media has almost always reflected this (to their profit). Read the following excerpt, if you have a problem believing this, and see if you can put it in context. When, in other words, was the following written?
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[ Posted Wednesday, November 9th, 2011 – 14:35 UTC ]
Every so often, I am so impressed by a comment to one of my columns that I offer to just turn my column over to the author, and let them have my soapbox. This doesn't happen often, usually around once per year.
I've written a few columns so far about the Occupy Wall Street protest, [...]
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