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What National Election? Electoral College Is the Only Tally That Counts
1 comment on What National Election? Electoral College Is the Only Tally That CountsFor better or worse, we don’t have national elections in America. We have 51 state elections. Occasionally this matters a lot — just ask President Gore about his half-million-vote “national victory” in 2000.
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Happy Birthday America!
Inspired by the Episcopal Collect for Independence Day, I’m grateful for the patriots who lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn, and for the troops (and one sailor in particular) who sacrifice to…
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Race, American Exceptionalism, and the Delicate Art of Criticizing Obama
To describe Mr. Obama’s attitude as anti-American is to caricature it. But he does seem motivated by a vision of America as just one more unremarkable country among many. That point of view has a…
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Happy Independence Day to You;
Happy Blogiversary to MeThree years ago today I posted my first substantive blog post, about Senator Obama, the Democratic nominee for president. Here’s how it began: “From the start, my take on Obama has been that he’s a…
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“Lit the Torch of Freedom for Nations Then Unborn”
Because of a happy accident of birth, I have the extraordinary privilege of being a United States citizen. I’m grateful for that every day, but especially on July 4. Happy Independence Day!
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Channeling His Inner Neocon: Did the Nobel Speech Launch the Obama Doctrine?
I may have been too quick to sneer yesterday at President Obama’s appearance in Oslo. He used his acceptance speech to issue a ringing declaration of American exceptionalism (although he would not use that term).
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God Knows: An IED in Iraq Shows Who, How, and Why We Fight
My point here is not to advocate waterboarding, a practice I oppose. To paraphrase a recent American president, my point is that good and evil both exist in the world — and the God of…
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The Whole World Celebrates America’s Independence Day
As a big fan of the concept of American exceptionalism, I’m always happy when our country gets its props in the broader world. So I was glad to see a CNN item about July 4th…
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American Ideals in Bush’s Third Term
President Obama sometimes sounds a lot like President Bush — and I mean that in the nicest possible way. Barack Hussein Obama, Cairo University, June 4, 2009: But I do have an unyielding belief that…
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Douthat’s Prescription For Republican Recovery
From his new op-ed perch as a New York Times token two-fer (conservative and bearded), Ross Douthat bids good riddance to Arlen Specter, and reminds us that ideas are more powerful than partisanship: The Reagan-era…