[ Posted Friday, March 14th, 2008 – 16:13 UTC ]
As Robert Anton Wilson pointed out (or William S. Burroughs, if you prefer), hexagram 23 of the I Ching is "breaking apart." Anyone who subscribes to his "23 enigma" theory will note that this is the twenty-third installment of this column. If you throw hexagram 23, the I Ching cautions: "the roof is shattered, the house collapses." I leave you, dear reader, to draw your own conclusions as to how this relates to Democratic politics for this particular week.
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[ Posted Friday, March 7th, 2008 – 16:04 UTC ]
The first was the fact that (although few noticed it) she blew the opening line on her appearance on Saturday Night Live. For the almost the entire 82-year history of the show (ahem), the opener has been the very-easy-to-pronounce: "Live, from New York, it's Saturday Night!" Hillary went all Ivy League on us, changing it to "it is Saturday Night." Sheesh. Luckily for her, nobody in the media noticed the gaffe, and it went largely unremarked. But some things are sacred, which is why I feel duty-bound to point it out here.
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[ Posted Friday, February 29th, 2008 – 15:52 UTC ]
Happy Leap Day! Because we are given an extra day this year, I would like to spend it in a good old fashioned Bush-bash. Maybe it's because everyone's focused on the election, or maybe the entire country just doesn't want to think about President Bush anymore, but I feel that he hasn't been getting the attention he deserves of late. And what better way to spend the extra day we get this leap year?
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[ Posted Friday, February 22nd, 2008 – 17:56 UTC ]
Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have, of late, been inserting Populist themes into their speeches, in an effort to (depending on who you listen to) win votes in Ohio and Pennsylvania, or court John Edwards' endorsement. Since this may be the last time I will address talking points to both campaigns, I thought I'd run through a few handy Neo-Populist positions for either Hillary or Barack to insert into their speeches.
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[ Posted Friday, February 15th, 2008 – 15:41 UTC ]
It's been a busy week for Democrats, with a lot to cover. There has been good news and bad, but on a whole I'd have to judge the week a success for Democrats in general. Led by what the Washington Post reports as a "rare uprising" of House Democrats. But before I get to that, I'd like to offer one observation from the campaign trail.
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[ Posted Friday, February 8th, 2008 – 15:57 UTC ]
And one more thing to drive a wedge between McCain and his party -- both Clinton and Obama should begin questioning John McCain's position on torture. This backs him into a corner, because he's (obviously, and with good reason) against it, but his base feels differently about it. Forcing him to talk about it, after the Bush administration this week admitted that it had waterboarded prisoners, is an excellent way to weaken him even further with the GOP base right now.
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[ Posted Friday, February 1st, 2008 – 17:18 UTC ]
This column is dedicated to the idea that Democrats can learn to use talking points as effectively as Republicans often do. This idea annoys many who feel that Democrats using talking points is degrading, and stoops to Republican tactics; a position I don't agree with, but still respect. But sometimes even I have to take Democrats to task for not backing up such talking points with action, or at the very least a plan of action.
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[ Posted Friday, January 25th, 2008 – 16:16 UTC ]
Netizens, fellow bloggers, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, Members of Congress, Supreme Court Justices, and all Americans... I am proud to stand before you and say... the state of the weblog is strong!
Blogging, for instance, means you can put your own comments out there before President Bush gives his final State of the Union speech next Monday. This is a good thing for our blogosphere!
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[ Posted Friday, January 18th, 2008 – 17:00 UTC ]
I apologize in advance for the disjointed nature of this week's column. There are a lot of odds and ends to cover, including tomorrow's primary picks, a cartoon, and the usual awards and talking points.
But the first of these ends is definitely odd: is it just my imagination, or did Charles Krauthammer (of all people) read my earlier column before writing his own? You be the judge.
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[ Posted Friday, January 11th, 2008 – 16:01 UTC ]
Now, you may think me delusional for suggesting this, but perhaps Hillary Clinton's advisers are fans of this column. Maybe she herself was browsing Huffington Post last Friday. You be the judge. The following is the advice I offered Hillary in last week's column:
The whole inevitability thing didn't work out the way it was supposed to. Likewise the electability thing. "Change" may gain ground, now that it's the official buzzword of '08, but the change Clinton really needs to make is in her style. The campaign is now about emotion, and Hillary needs to get back to the point where she was earlier in the contest, when she was actually showing a decent amount of emotion and connecting with her crowds on a personal level. The wonky "I'll be ready on day one," and reciting lists of reasons why she should be nominated needs to change to actually connecting with people emotionally in the final stretch.
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