I can appreciate that much of modern feminism is about women have the power to choose, but choosing a life short of equality strikes me as troubling. The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, for example, is offering courses on homemaking — in which women are taught that “men make decisions; women make dinner.” This fall, the […]
Politics of personal destruction takes another ugly turn
When irresponsible rumor mongers engage in ugly gossip, especially in politics, my first instinct is to ignore it. As a rule, there’s no reason to dignify obnoxious rumors with a response. Besides, by criticizing the smear, one necessarily helps disseminate the nonsense. There is, however, another side to this. If the Swiftboat lies teach us […]
Did the NSA retaliate against Qwest?
It’s been a long while, so let’s quickly review. USA Today reported over a year ago that the NSA had created a massive database with records of nearly every phone call made in the United States. Qwest did not cooperate with the program, but acknowledged that the NSA asked the company to turn over the […]
A top-down smear? McConnell staffer connected to Frost family fiasco
When a pseudonymous poster at the Free Republic goes after a 12-year-old boy and his cash-strapped family, the Republican Party establishment has at least some plausible deniability. These are just fringe players, the party can say, and smear campaigns against innocent families isn’t our style. That becomes a much tougher pitch, though, if the Senate […]
Despite a wide-open race, Republicans sit on their hands
When it comes to the 2008 presidential race, Democrats and Republicans, for the first time since 1952, are in the exact same boat — no incumbent president seeking another term, no incumbent vice president looking for a promotion. In fact, this campaign will only be the second since 1920 that we’ve seen this dynamic play […]
GOP ‘finds religion’ on spending at the wrong time
Almost lost in the shuffle surrounding the conservative response to S-CHIP — much of the right has decided the problem is really a low-income, 12-year-old boy with no health insurance — is that congressional Republicans are still in a very tough spot. Apparently, they’re not happy about it. With Bush already having vetoed a bipartisan […]
Thursday’s political round-up
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * It was inevitable. After Mitt Romney mentioned checking with “the lawyers” about whether a president should get congressional authorization for an attack on Iran, Rudy Giuliani compared the comments to John Kerry’s […]
CNN blames Dems for Frost family smear
Over the course of the week, it’s been unquestionably obvious, even to many conservatives, that smearing 12-year-old Graeme Frost and his family has been a huge mistake. The right not only launched a vicious smear of a seventh-grader, it more importantly did so with falsehoods. Several traditional news outlets — including Time, the New York […]
Has the religious right picked a candidate?
In recent weeks, major religious-right heavyweights like James Dobson and Tony Perkins have made it clear that if Rudy Giuliani wins the GOP nomination, they’ll leave the party. For all the already-outlined reasons, I’m pretty sure the movement isn’t bluffing. That said, Dobson & Co. aren’t executing a general-election strategy; they’re executing a primary-election strategy. […]
School vouchers fail another accountability test
Proponents of private school vouchers have been making the same arguments for over a decade now. Near the top of the list is the notion that using public funds to pay for private school tuition offers students at under-performing public schools a better chance at a quality education. What usually goes unsaid, however, is that […]