Ask Your Doctor
[ Posted Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 – 16:19 UTC ]
The Mud Will Fly In 2008
[ Posted Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 – 10:10 UTC ]
This column really should be called "Variations on a Theme," as it continues the thought I began on Monday ("Will 2008 Be A Ho-Hum Election?") -- what kind of campaign will it turn out to be if we wind up with Hillary Clinton versus Rudy Giuliani? (As I said previously, I am not going out on a limb here and predicting that the race will come down to Clinton and Giuliani, but given their poll numbers it is certainly plausible that they will be the nominees next year.) While Monday's article examined the relative lack of enthusiasm for each candidate from within their own parties, today I'd like to look at the negative enthusiasm against the candidates from their opposition.
Hillary's detractors are well-known (and vocal). Hillary's negatives are also well-known. For whatever reason (I've never quite understood why, myself) Hillary also provokes an almost irrational amount of seething hatred against her from the right wing. None of this is earth-shattering news to anyone who hasn't been under a rock since 1992.
Twelve Captains Speak Out
[ Posted Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 – 14:29 UTC ]
Getting a clear picture of the situation on the ground in the middle of an occupation or war is a hard thing to do. For various reasons, it's hard to trust the reports from the Pentagon, the embedded media, or politicians of either stripe, because their views are usually skewed in one direction or another.
Which is why I give much more weight to first-person accounts from soldiers who have been there. And you can call me anti-elitist, but the lower the rank of the soldier, the more weight I give to their accounts. I see it as: the closer you get to the bottom, the tougher jobs you likely will have performed. This may not be fair, but I wanted to lay out my own personal biases (since I'm criticizing everyone else's).
Will 2008 Be A Ho-Hum Election?
[ Posted Monday, October 15th, 2007 – 14:38 UTC ]
Conventional wisdom (or at least the self-proclaimed sages of political conventional wisdom, the Washington punditry) has been telling us that the 2008 presidential election is going to be The Most Important Election In Modern Times (if not actually In History), and that (of course) the electorate is More Polarized Than Ever -- which explains not only how incredibly early the contest started, but also the fierce battles for the primaries now being waged.
But what if this conventional wisdom turns out to be wrong? What if the 2008 election is a real snooze-fest, and voters are barely motivated to go to the polls?
Pushing Paper
[ Posted Saturday, October 13th, 2007 – 11:35 UTC ]
Friday Democratic Talking Points [Vol. 5]
[ Posted Friday, October 12th, 2007 – 17:32 UTC ]
Welcome back to the weekly talking points for Democrats appearing on television this weekend. Before I begin, I'd like to wish Ted Kennedy a fast and easy recovery from his recent surgery. We need you in the Senate, Teddy! Good health and long life!
Since I have been focusing this column on the SCHIP bill almost exclusively for the past two weeks [Vol. 3 and Vol. 4], I am going to refrain from repeating any of these talking points this week. They're all still valid, so Democrats should check them out to brush up on their SCHIP answers.
I must say, Charles Rangel impressed me last weekend, on CBS' Face The Nation, as he is the first Democrat I've heard yet using the "block grant" argument against the Republican spin on SCHIP. Modesty forbids me to take any credit, but if he is indeed reading these columns I'd like to say, "Well done, Representative Rangel!"
C'mon, Nancy, Tell Us What You Really Think
[ Posted Thursday, October 11th, 2007 – 16:15 UTC ]
Let me begin by saying that in general, I like Nancy Pelosi. I think she's been more effective than Harry Reid at both passing bills and defending the Democratic position in Congress. She has held House Democrats together for some crucial votes, and -- because there is no filibuster in the House of Representatives -- she has more leeway to get things done.
Having said that, I was rather stunned to read in a fairly snarky article in the Washington Post that Speaker Pelosi is annoyed at the anti-war base in her own party -- specifically for demonstrating outside her San Francisco house. Here is an extended excerpt from the article (the whole thing is worth reading):
Strange Bedfellows
[ Posted Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 – 15:37 UTC ]
Sovereignty In Iraq
[ Posted Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 – 03:54 UTC ]
Sovereignty (n) -- government free from external control
Is Iraq a truly sovereign state, or is the Maliki government a puppet of America? We may know the answer to this crucial question in a very short time. Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki could show independence from American interests in many ways, some of them decidedly not to President Bush's liking.
News From The Edges Of Iraq
[ Posted Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 – 17:09 UTC ]
While most attention paid to Iraq by the American media is centered on Baghdad (and, post-"surge," al-Anbar province), there are two developing situations which bear closely watching over the next few months. The first is at the northern edge of Iraq, where the Kurdish areas of both Iraq and Turkey overlap. The second is the south, especially the city of Basra and the surrounding oil fields.
I've written about the Turkish situation before. Turkey is determined not to let the Iraqi Kurds declare their own country ("Kurdistan"), because it believes a Kurdish section of Turkey would want to join them (and by doing so, secede from Turkey). There are Turkish Kurds ("rebels" or "terrorists," depending on who you talk to) already fighting a low-level guerrilla war against Turkey, and Turkey is inching closer to directly attacking their bases in Iraq.