[ Posted Wednesday, July 8th, 2015 – 17:15 UTC ]
The American public has a pretty high level of seething contempt for politicians. However, this is easily matched (if not surpassed) by the level of seething contempt the public also holds for journalists and the news media. I mention these two facts because whenever the media inserts itself into a story (or "becomes the story"), they usually are astonished that the public doesn't see them in the quite the sympathetic light they're aiming for. Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to the story of Hillary Clinton's rope trick.
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[ Posted Monday, July 6th, 2015 – 16:10 UTC ]
The Democratic presidential field is shaping up into a one-on-one contest, at least at this early stage of the race. While Jim Webb, Martin O'Malley, and Lincoln Chafee are all now official candidates, none of them has managed to either distinguish themselves much or garner much of any voter support. Which leaves Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders as the only two candidates capable of pulling in double-digit polling numbers among Democratic voters. Well, to be absolutely accurate, there are three Democrats who routinely manage this feat, but so far Joe Biden hasn't indicated whether he'll run or not. For now, it's Hillary versus Bernie, and the next few weeks could considerably sharpen up this contest.
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[ Posted Friday, July 3rd, 2015 – 17:35 UTC ]
It's officially a holiday since tomorrow's the nation's birthday and all, but since this column took a vacation last week, we thought we'd better get a new column out today. After all, it's been an eventful two weeks!
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[ Posted Wednesday, July 1st, 2015 – 16:43 UTC ]
June was a busy month for President Obama's job approval ratings. Lots of things were happening during the month, good and bad, and Obama's approval rating swung through an initial steep decline, but then at the end of the month experienced a spectacular recovery. What July will bring is anyone's guess, in other words. Obama wound up down for the month when the monthly averages were calculated, but they could very easily go right back up again in July. Here's our updated chart.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 30th, 2015 – 16:59 UTC ]
The Supreme Court issued their last rulings of the season yesterday, and I thought one ruling kind of got short shrift by the media. Granted, there were other big rulings on the same day (the court usually saves their biggest cases for last, but this year they actually released the two biggest decisions last week) involving E.P.A. regulations and the death penalty, but the redistricting case -- to me, at least -- was more important.
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[ Posted Monday, June 22nd, 2015 – 17:17 UTC ]
So vexillology is in the news. Vexillology (as fans of The Big Bang Theory should already know) is the study of flags. A spirited debate is taking place about South Carolina's law which dictates that the Confederate battle flag be prominently displayed on the grounds of the statehouse. This flag used to fly over the statehouse dome, but was moved to a Civil War monument the last time this debate raged, as a form of compromise that was deemed politically acceptable at the time.
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[ Posted Friday, June 19th, 2015 – 17:30 UTC ]
It's been a rollercoaster week in the political world, beginning with Hillary Clinton shifting the gears of her campaign by holding her first big rally, which was immediately followed by the man we're going to call "Jeb! Bush!" finally officially announcing his own candidacy.
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 17th, 2015 – 17:29 UTC ]
Is Fox News on the brink of becoming (as Pinocchio might say) a "real news organization" instead of the wooden de facto propaganda wing of the Republican Party? This might have been seen as a wildly speculative (and unrealistic) question just a short time ago, but events seem to be moving quickly and it now can be seen as a distinct possibility.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 16th, 2015 – 16:55 UTC ]
When the 2016 presidential campaign season began earlier this year, I started writing articles about every candidate when they officially announced their candidacies. I made a promise in many of these columns, that I would take each candidate seriously no matter what I personally thought their chances of winning were, or how much I agreed or disagreed with their platform. I promised not to be snarky, above all. I think that running for president is a serious business, and even though it does occasionally include what I would call "not really serious" candidates, I still wanted to give a measure of respect to each entrant to the race at the very start of their campaign. As I put it repeatedly, there will be plenty of time for being snarky later (usually on Fridays, of course).
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[ Posted Monday, June 15th, 2015 – 18:28 UTC ]
Today, Jeb Bush formally entered the race for the Republican nomination for president. I should point out, as a bit of personal trivia, that his new campaign logo ("Jeb!") has allowed me to create what I believe is the shortest headline I have ever written (in over 2,000 blog posts).
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