Posts filed under 'Uncategorized'
November 3rd, 2009
 
 Bob Shrum NAILS IT – and how!
 A few excerpts:
 The true believers claim they’re Reagan conservatives, but their politics are a betrayal of the leader they ritually canonize — a betrayal not just in strategy, but in spirit. Ronald Reagan didn’t just tolerate moderates in his party; he valued them. Reagan knew that to be a governing party, rather than an ideological faction, the GOP needed to run and win outside conservative strongholds. So Reagan’s GOP gave all-out support to pro-choice candidates like Pete Wilson in California…
 Even while bending history in a different direction, Reagan more frequently quoted FDR and JFK than any conservative predecessor. In announcing his presidential run in 1980, facing an America of gas lines, rising inflation and rising doubt, with U.S. diplomats held hostage in Iran, Reagan rebuked Jimmy Carter’s complaint that he couldn’t govern effectively due to a crisis of national spirit. With a sense of comfort and command, Reagan told the voters that it was time to renew “our capacity for dreaming up fantastic deeds and bringing them off to the surprise of an unbelieving world. . . . We still have that power.” He even retooled one of Roosevelt’s signature phrases: “You and I together can keep that rendezvous with destiny.” It’s stunning to rewatch that speech; Reagan seems less like today’s Republicans than like Barack Obama declaring: “Yes, we can.”…Â
 A GOP mired in anger and vituperation doesn’t begin to comprehend Reagan’s gift for respecting political opponents — or even diminishing them. Instead of dispensing with the opposition with Reagan-like humor, Republicans treat their opponents as mortal enemies, elevating them with paranoid fantasies about their immense power. To one of Jimmy Carter’s attacks during their debate, Reagan famously replied with a chuckle: “There you go again.” It’s impossible to imagine him sneering: “How dare you go Marxist.”
 Ronald Reagan was a proud conservative, but not an unthinking, unyielding, or uncivil one. He had an appeal that reached across party lines, not just to a withered and warped political base. The least Republicans could do, having named an airport for him, is to remember how he navigated the political winds — and found the route to a new political era. But it’s Obama who’s doing that now. The GOP has dumped the Gipper.
 I would bet the farm that Shrum’s contrast of Reagan’s political style to that of today’s right-wingers will be confirmed by contributions from wingnuts in the comments section of this post. Check it out.
November 2nd, 2009
It says HERE that the government is concerned about overload on the Internet as millions of Americans suffering from swine flu work from home on their computers.
October 28th, 2009
 The roster of categories along the right-hand rail of this blog was getting way long and unwieldy, so I’ve scrubbed it clean and started from scratch with today’s posts.
 Previous posts on given subjects can still be accessed through Google, if you know what you’re doing. Or you can just ask me in a comment, and I’ll find what you’re looking for.
October 27th, 2009
 
  (NOTICE: See UPDATE at the bottom of this post.)
Golly whiz! I never could have predicted THIS:
 In an appearance at the University of Arizona College of Law, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that if he were on the court in 1954, he would have dissented in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision that ended school segregation based on race.
 Hmm. I wonder if he also would have dissented in Loving vs. Virginia, the 1964 case that overturned anti-miscegenation laws.
 How about Griswold vs. Connecticut, the 1965 case that overturned a state law prohibiting contraception?
 And which side would he have taken in the Dred Scott Decision?
UPDATE: HuffPo has run a correction, noting that Scalia was misquoted: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/27/scalia-on-brown-v-board-o_n_335591.html
October 27th, 2009
 UPDATE: Since posting this video, I’ve discovered that it’s an entry in a contest organized by the infamous Randall Terry, another charming fellow. Check it out HERE.
October 27th, 2009
 
 It says HERE that Harry Reid only recently came upon the strategy that now seems to hold great promise for passage of health-care reform legislation.
 An excerpt:
 The announcement was a dramatic triumph for the progressive community, which had howled and hissed for months as the prospects for a government-run plan dimmed. But the story behind Reid’s decision has more to do with backroom negotiations behind a hastily proposed idea than with a change in political temperament.
 The compromise proposal that turned out to be the senator’s solution for the public option impasse — allowing states to opt-out of the system — first came to his attention only three weeks ago, an aide confirmed
 POSTSCRIPT: Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I don’t see many states opting out of the public option for very long.
 I can envision an out-migration of lots of people from opt-out states to states that offer the public option. Sparsely-populated conservative states — Wyoming, for example — could ill-afford to lose much of their populace.
 But, as I say, maybe I’m wrong about this.
October 27th, 2009
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 Jonathan Alter ARGUES that Barack Obama’s presidency already is a year old, or will be on November 4.
 A few excerpts:
 Election night 2008 went late in Chicago. Many campaign staffers who had spent two years helping Barack Obama get elected celebrated in Grant Park until the wee hours. But if senior aides were under the impression they might get the following day off, they were mistaken. Obama’s transition director, John Podesta, scheduled a senior staff meeting for the next morning, Wednesday, Nov. 5, at 10:30 a.m. Podesta, Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff, figured it would take a half hour, 45 minutes tops, to bat around some scheduling options and maybe even tell a few war stories from the campaign. But the soon-to-be commander in chief had other plans. To him, Wednesday was another workday—or, more precisely, the first day of his presidency…
 Normally a new presidency begins with the inauguration in January. But Barack Obama’s tenure really started in November, a full year ago, when he became the de facto co-president of the United States. Obama couldn’t yet sign bills or issue executive orders. He and his family couldn’t sleep in the White House. Having resigned from the Senate, he was technically a private citizen— a man with no constitutional authority. But these were formalities. For the first time in modern American history, an incoming president made some of the most important decisions of his term—about the economy, mainly, but also about energy, education, and health care—before taking office. If “to govern is to choose,” as John F. Kennedy said, then Obama was already governing.
 ”We only have one president at a time,” Obama insisted repeatedly before he was inaugurated. While this was the right thing to say, it wasn’t really true.
October 26th, 2009
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 Lots of liberals, including several of my friends, have looked askance at the Obama administration’s willingness to wage war against Fox News.
 But I’m inclined to think it’s a shrewd strategy that will pay dividends in the long run. And I’m not alone in that regard, as we see HERE.
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