Politics

Business Up Front, Democratic Party in the Back

I love politics. I spend hours a day wallowing in it on the Drudge Retort. I also hate politics, and I'm going to pick on a couple of frequent contributors to Workbench to show why. Chad Irby: You put in a couple of words he DIDN'T say, to try and create One More Bush Screwup, and screwed up yourself. Admit it, instead of trying to contend that black is white. It just shows your bias to be nearly impossible to overcome, and contaminates any other arguments you might make on something he really ... (read more)

2007/07/18

President Bush: My Constituents are The Enemy

Political Fretwork, a liberal blog on Buzzword.Com's free WordPress hosting service, noticed something funny about President Bush's press conference yesterday that has escaped the attention of the media -- the president called the insurgents in Iraq his constituents: ... there's a lot of constituencies in this fight -- clearly the American people, who are paying for this, is the major constituency. ... A second constituency is the military. ... A third constituency that matters to me a lot is ... (read more)

2007/07/13

Constitutional Glitch: Presidents Don't Fear Impeachment

Even with my low opinion of President Bush, I did not expect him to give Lewis Libby a get-out-of-jail free card. The constitutional implications of the president freeing a White House official from the sentence doled out in a criminal case, when the crime involves the vice president and possibly even the president himself, couldn't be more clear. When the Senate failed to remove President Clinton from office after his impeachment in 1999, falling 22 votes short of the 67 needed, I thought it ... (read more)

2007/07/09

My Guess: Opie and Anthony are Screwed

The media's covering a tasteless sexual rant by a guest on Opie and Anthony's radio show Wednesday that was targeted at Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush, but no one's explaining what the guy said. I put the transcript and audio up on Watching the Watchers, so people can judge for themselves. I don't listen to the show, so I can't judge the comments in the context of what they do every day. I have trouble imagining a context in which the sentiments aren't ugly as ... (read more)

2007/05/11

Down Syndrome Parents Wrestle with Extinction

There's an interesting hot-button issue on the Drudge Retort this morning: Parents of children with Down syndrome are concerned about a new trend some liken to eugenics -- 9-in-10 prospective parents, equipped with safe tests that detect the condition in the womb, choose to abort rather than raise such a child. "We want people who make this decision to know our kids," said Lucy Talbot, the president of a support group. "We want them to talk to us." From what I've learned through limited ... (read more)

2007/05/09

Free the Presidential Debates

Barack Obama and John Edwards have both written letters this week calling on presidential debates to be released under a Creative Commons license. Edwards' take: The Creative Commons license terms offer an easy way to ensure that the networks' rights are protected. Much of the content on my own campaign web site is available under just such a license. Commercial constraints are severe enough in their effect in diluting the substance of our campaigns. Limiting access to long-form televised ... (read more)

2007/05/04

Politics Is Not a Team Sport

The novelist Andrew Klavan has written a completely insufferable ode to himself for being conservative that's getting a lot of praise. The thing I like best about being a conservative is that I don't have to lie. ... This is leftism's great strength: it's all white lies. I wrote a response for Watching the Watchers that addresses the need of too many Americans to treat politics like a sport in which your team rox and the other team sux. ... (read more)

2007/04/25

Finding Good Blogs in a Sea of Spam

The 16 free WordPress hosts I began in February have been a gigantic maintenance hassle because of spammer abuse, but they have lauched two cool new sites: The Ad Whisperers, a blog about TV commercials, and Political Fretwork, a liberal blog that mines the press for political news. Last night, Ad Whisperers linked to a phone commercial that has an unusual selling point -- our company will stick with you through all the changes in your life -- even sexual orientation: You may have seen the new ... (read more)

2007/04/20

Councilman: Stop Apologizing to American Indians

I filed my first story today for Watching the Watchers -- a Republican city councilman in Texas thinks its time to stop apologizing to American Indians: A Houston city council member said on his radio talk show that the U.S. should "stop the continuous apology for what was done to the American Indians" and drop federal programs and treaties that provide casino rights, educational support and welfare. Michael Berry, a Republican councilman in his third term and mayor pro tempore who hosts a ... (read more)

2007/04/02

Eliot Spitzer Files UDRP to Take EliotSpitzer.Com

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer appears to have begun legal proceedings to take the domain names eliotspitzer.com and eliotspitzer.org away from Eric Keller, a New Jersey online candy retailer who registered them in 2001. A Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) arbitration began today regarding the domains at the National Arbitration Forum. Arbitrators will decide whether the domains were registered and used in bad faith, whether Keller has legitimate rights in the names, and whether ... (read more)

2007/02/22

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