April 30, 2008
The Wright and the Wrong (A.B. Stoddard)
Barack Obama has had his long-awaited day of reckoning, finally and unequivocally ridding himself of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright once and for all. He said what he had to, yet the question of why he allowed a connection with Wright to linger for nearly two months is a mystery that will endure. Why, when he knew not only of Wright's notorious rants, but of his narcissism, did he trust that a continued relationship was safe in the treacherous waters of presidential politics?
The question Americans will continue to ask about the Wright episode centers on Obama's judgment, a circumstance that threatens to undercut one of his greatest selling points. Judgment is a cornerstone of the Obama candidacy. Obama's Chicago friends have surely informed him over the years of Wright's radical views, should it ever be true that Obama hadn't heard them in church. > Read More
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What's This Personal Responsibility and Healthcare (Armstrong Williams)
Although clinical preventive health is equally important to personal health, just 14 percent of voters identified physicals and screenings as the most important preventive healthcare practice. “We know that preventive services such as mammograms, colonoscopies and simple dental exams are vital tools in the fight against serious disease,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) recently stated. “We now have to act on this knowledge; procrastination costs lives and fuels the high cost of healthcare.”
If Congress wants to help the issue, they need to shift themes in the ongoing debate. Recently, prominent healthcare professionals and senior congressional staff from both sides of the aisle were brought together to discuss current preventive health legislation. The Politics of Prevention forum hosted folks such as renowned chronic disease expert Dr. Ken Thorpe, along with a bipartisan, pioneering group of senators and House members leading the charge on this effort. Those are the steps Washington should now be taking to build the bridges for action. > Read More
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What's This Protecting the Dollar (John Feehery)
Brian Wesbury, a Chicago economist, has a great op-ed in The Wall Street Journal today, entitled “Déjà vu: The Fed’s Interest Rate Dilemma,” that is the best explanation I have seen about what is happening to the dollar and how to fix it.
Wesbury’s theory is that easy monetary policy has devalued the dollar and made bad situations in the energy and food sectors much worse. “Since 2001, and especially since September 2007 — when the Fed starting cutting rates in response to credit market issues — excessively easy monetary policy has driven oil and other commodity prices through the roof.”
Wesbury goes on to say: “The good news is we’ve been here before, and we know — well, at least 1980s Fed Chairman Paul Volcker knows — how to get out of this mess. Loose money in the 1960s and 1970s drove up the price of everything. A barrel of oil, which sold for $2.92 in 1965, rose to $40 in 1980. Most people believed that rising commodity prices indicated that the world was running out of resources … In 1980, then-Fed Chairman Volcker lifted the Fed funds rate significantly above GDP growth and held it there long enough to end inflation. This policy instigated a steep decline in oil prices, and drove a stake through the heart of stagflation.” > Read More
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What's This April 29, 2008
Disowning Your Grandmother (Stuart Roy)
The problem with being a politician is that you have to sometimes be, well, political. The best thing about being above the fray is that you are above the fray. The problem with being a politician who wants to be above the fray … Just read the above two sentences again.
Less than two months ago Barack Obama gave an eloquent defense of his pastor of more than 20 years. He told the nation he wants to lead that there was more to the man than the caricature that had been drawn of him. Many took that to show that Obama had political courage. The professional campaigners looked on it as a tactical error. > Read More
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What's This The Voter ID Issue (Ronald Goldfarb)
What you find depends on where you look, Yogi Berra might have said if he read the United States Supreme Court’s recent opinion (4/28/08) in the Indiana voter ID case, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board. The 6-3 majority decided that the challengers of the law did not come forward with people who were, in fact, prejudiced against by the operation of the voter photo ID requirement — which is not an easy task, somewhat akin to proving a negative. The dissenters argued that the State of Indiana did not prove there were frauds that warranted the passage of this law, aimed, supposedly, at preventing said alleged frauds. One does not see what one does not find. > Read More
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What's This Smiles and Slurs (Ryan J. Davis)
Disturbingly, most of my gay friends seem fine with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-N.Y.) campaign using racism to win votes. What will they think now that she's stood next to North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley (D) while he used a gay slur, basically calling Obama a "pansy"?
Now, I know from spending many recesses in middle school being called a pansy that it's just a subtle way of saying “faggot.” Clinton stood by while Easley made that comment, smiling away. Speaking to a prominent gay journalist friend of mine this morning, he expressed his frustration with her campaign. "Hillary doesn't care about the gays. It's that simple. We're a political tool, like everything else in that family's orbit." > Read More
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What's This The Wright World-View (John Feehery)
Jeremiah Wright’s performance at the National Press Club was devastating for the Obama campaign. No matter how David Axelrod tries to spin it, the story will not go away.
Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) chief asset has been his perceived ability to see the world through multicultural eyes. His father from Kenya, his mother from Kansas, his upbringing in Hawaii, his time spent in Indonesia — all of this life experience allows Obama, or so the story goes, to offer a different, more updated, vision of reality, a reality that moves beyond black and white.
Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Wright, on the other hand, sees all things through a black-and-white lens. And in Wright’s world-view, all that is black is good, and all that is white is bad. > Read More
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What's This Obama and Wright (David Keene)
In politics, it’s more often than not your friends and supporters who end up doing you in — something that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is learning.
I would guess that by now, the young senator wishes he’d never stepped into the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church a couple of decades ago. Indeed, after his minister finished speaking to the Press Club yesterday, he’s probably wishing the man would just shut up.
Part of Obama’s problem stems from the fact that while folks have been impressed by his rhetoric, they don’t really know all that much about him. They’re beginning to realize that he’s a fairly conventional liberal when it comes to his votes — which are often at odds with his rhetoric — but now they’re quite naturally looking to his associates and those close to him to figure out exactly where he might be coming from. > Read More
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What's This Will Democrats Have a Nominee in June? (Armstrong Williams)
With only seven states and 300 superdelegates left, the “Screamer” Howard Dean thinks Democrats might be able to finally make a decision on their official nominee by June. The primaries are over by the beginning of summer, but the illusion of a small-d democratic party still needs time for the VIPs to make up their minds. I find this whole process as hysterical as Howard’s “Yeaaaaaaaaaaarrrggg!!” Just a few months ago the party was already planning the second-floor décor of the White House, and now they have become so divided that their future in the West Wing is more uncertain than ever. What happened?
For one thing, the voters are split. Although many individuals are decided between Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) or Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), the divide is virtually even. Sure, Sen. Obama is leading in North Carolina, but Sen. Clinton has a chance to win Indiana. Each time the party seems close to choosing a nominee, the tides change. After all, Sen. Clinton was almost out of mathematical contention … then she won Pennsylvania and gained the much-needed momentum to at least keep her PR campaign alive that somehow she can pull this thing off. > Read More
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What's This April 28, 2008
Race Issue in the Presidential Race (A.B. Stoddard)
A.B. Stoddard offers comments on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's recent speech at the National Press Club and answers your questions about the Democratic presidential candidates.
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