Category: Uncategorized
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George Will Has Obama’s Back on Egypt
George Will is often out of step with other conservatives. Sometimes I’m glad of this, and sometimes I’m not. He speaks wisdom in his latest column, taking on the Righties who use every news peg to try to bash President Obama. (Some elements of the Left, of course, are equally guilty of this tendency.) Here’s […]
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Dog Bites Man: MoveOn.org Twists the Truth
The folks behind the scurrilous “General Betray Us” ad have latched on to another issue to distort. One of the cool things about Facebook is that it provides a painless way of gaining exposure to alternate points of view. Liberal FB friends sometimes inspire me to rethink my own assumptions. Other times, like this, they […]
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What Should the U.S. Root for in Egypt?
Hosni Mubarak is a dictator, despite whatever a clueless vice president says. But while he may be an S.O.B, he’s our S.O.B., and it could be that the interests of the U.S. diverge from the interests of the Egyptian people. Certainly if Mubarak gets replaced by a Sunni version of Iran’s Islamic theocracy, that would […]
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This Blog Gets Results: Janet Napolitano to Scrap Color-Coded Threat Advisories
Who says the federal government isn’t responsive to ordinary citizens? Barely a year has passed since A.T.I.N. advised Janet Napolitano to scrap the silly color-coded alert system, and now published reports say the Homeland Security Secretary will do exactly that in a speech tomorrow. There have been complaints about about the five-tiered system since its […]
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Martin Luther King, Jr.: Preacher, Activist, Martyr… and American
At church today I had the privilege of reading excerpts, from the lectern, of one of the greatest speeches in American history. I was worried that I wouldn’t make it all the way through without crying. I have a Boehner-like tendency to dissolve in tears on solemn occasions — not just at funerals, but also […]
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In the Face of Evil, Good People Did Something
Seldom has any news event captured the spirit behind this blog’s title as powerfully as the atrocity (not tragedy) in Tucson. “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.” It’s usually quoted as “good men,” but since Edmund Burke apparently did not actually say it, I’ve felt free […]
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Shooter’s Derangement Points to Need for More Civility in Politics
Sarah Palin and everyone associated with her political action committee are, no doubt, regretting the boneheaded decision to superimpose crosshairs on the districts of Gabrielle Giffords and other House members Palin was “targeting” in the 2010 campaign. But it’s easy to make too much of the ad, and there was support for Palin from an […]
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“Catastrophic Success: The Perils of a ‘Do-Everything’ Democratic Congress”
It was mathematically impossible for the Republicans to pick up enough seats in 2010 for a veto-proof majority that would allow them to overturn Obamacare altogether. So now the strategy is to delay and defund the worst components of Obamacare whenever possible, while waiting for the courts and the election cycle to take care of the rest.
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DADT: Some Days It’s Not Easy Being a Socially Liberal Republican
For national security and economic reasons I generally vote Republican, but I’m quite liberal on social issues. For example, my support for same-sex marriage equality puts me to the left of Barack “marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman” Obama. This occasionally leads to cognitive dissonance, when people I otherwise admire take positions I find offensive. I voted for Jon Corzine […]
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About That “Catastrophic” Gusher in the Gulf… Meh.
There’s a BP station on the route between my home and my work, and that’s where I always get my gas. I’m not a fan of boycotts, especially ones that primarily victimize local business owners with no say in corporate affairs. Besides, the station charges the same price for cash or credit. It’s hard to […]