"The images summed up Hurricane Irene — the media and the United States federal government trying to live up to their own doom–laden warnings and predictions while a sizeable number of ordinary Americans just carried on as normal and even made gentle fun of all the fuss."Toby HarndenThe TelegraphAug. 28, 2011Perhaps I'm getting cynical, but I can't help seeing the political motives of just about every move politicians make now — under virtually any circumstances — even those politicians who are thought to be above such mundane concerns.The response...
Monday, August 29, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
1996 Democratic National Convention-Clinton Acceptance Speech- Watch more Politics Videos at Vodpod.It's ironic now, when one watches footage from the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago 15 years ago, to see and hear Bill Clinton thanking the delegates for entrusting him with the presidential nomination again.It's ironic when one realizes that, at that time, Clinton was already involved in the relationship with Monica Lewinsky that would threaten to undermine his second term.From the perspective of 2011, it's hard to look back at...
Friday, August 26, 2011
Today would have been a milestone for my mother — if she had not died in a flash flood 16 years ago.Today would have been her 80th birthday — and, if nature had not intervened, I am quite sure she would still be with us today.I can't know a thing like that, of course. But I know the family history, and I know what Mom's health was like on the day she drowned. At the time she died, I believed she could have been with us for another 20 years, at least,...
Thursday, August 25, 2011
On this day 25 years ago, Robert Chambers became the "Preppie Killer" when he strangled an 18–year–old girl named Jennifer Levin in New York's Central Park.That was a different time. Today, the murder of an unknown yet attractive girl anywhere would attract dozens of camera crews from all over the world, and the internet would be full of details on first the investigation and then the trial. In 2011, you wouldn't be able to escape those details,...
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Earthquakes are different in the eastern United States than in the western United States, a fellow with a geological background was saying yesterday following the earthquake in northern Virginia.I didn't catch everything he said because I was channel surfing, and I came across him midway through his segment, but I gathered from what I heard that the fault lines along the west coast are more active than the ones on the east coast.I guess I didn't...
Monday, August 22, 2011
When the Republicans gathered for their 1956 national convention, they were there to renominate a president who had been far from a sure thing to seek a second term almost a year earlier.President Eisenhower had suffered a heart attack on Sept. 24, 1955, and he had undergone surgery related to his Crohn's disease early in 1956. Thus, there was some uncertainty whether Eisenhower would seek re–election — at least initially.However, the president bounced...
Sunday, August 21, 2011
"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."Proverbs 16:18Over the centuries of human history, there have been many reasons why whoever held power eventually was toppled.But at the heart of it all, it seems to me, is a special kind of arrogance — the absolute certainty that one is always in the right and anyone who disagrees is wrong, the belief that one is above the rules by which all others must live.This arrogance has been expressed in many ways, but in my lifetime it most often seems to be linked to sexual indiscretion of...
Saturday, August 20, 2011
"All I know is what I read in the papers."Will RogersSometimes I feel like Will Rogers — although these days, with the newspaper industry on life support in many markets, I guess the more appropriate reference would be what I read on news web sites — or something similar.The president says the economy is getting better and that another recession is not going to happen.But Morgan Stanley says that prospect is more, not less, likely.Wall Street clearly puts more — ahem — stock in Morgan Stanley than Barack Obama. Stocks closed down again yesterday,...
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Jerry Ford was always a likable guy — even when he was put in the unenviable position of having to defend Richard Nixon.And he had to do that far too often after Nixon (under the provisions of the 25th Amendment) picked him to replace the previous vice president, Spiro Agnew, who resigned in disgrace in October 1973.There were probably many times during Ford's 2½–year presidency when he was too nice for his own good, and this day in 1976, the year he sought a full term as president, may be the best example.On this night 35 years ago, Ford's task...
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Author's note: In March 1956, Ian Fleming published "Diamonds Are Forever," in which James Bond's preference for a martini that was "shaken, not stirred" became known.In the 1950s, television was not new. It had been developed decades earlier, but it didn't play its first major role in American politics until the mid–1950s.Broadcasting was still rather embryonic in 1956, when Dwight Eisenhower ran for a second term as president. TV networks didn't fully appreciate the subtleties of camera angles, and politicians hadn't made endless studies about...
Sunday, August 14, 2011
I don't know if Bob Dole harbored presidential ambitions for a long time — or if that was a relatively late phenomenon in his political career.Thirty–five yeas ago — almost midway through Dole's congressional career — President Ford picked him to be his running mate.In those days, Ford was seen as a centrist, especially after winning a bruising battle with conservative Ronald Reagan for his party's nomination — and lots of folks believed he chose...
The last presidential election demonstrated rather vividly that growing portions of both political parties are embracing the idea of electing a woman to the executive branch of the federal government, as either president or vice president.On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton was narrowly beaten for the presidential nomination by Barack Obama in a race that came to be seen by many as a battle between historical guilt trips, misogyny and racism....
Friday, August 12, 2011
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it."Groucho MarxPeter Hamby of CNN reports that today's straw poll in Ames, Iowa, could make or break Republican presidential candidacies.Well, perhaps. Frankly, though, I think it's a non–event. No delegates are assigned. Very few people participate in it (there are roughly 3 million people in Iowa, and fewer than 15,000 took part in the 2007 straw poll — the high water mark for the poll was...
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."14th Amendment, U.S. ConstitutionSection 4Yesterday, I was talking on Facebook with a fellow I have known since we were children in Arkansas. He still lives there. I do not.I have been in the habit, from time to time, of posting links to politically oriented articles on Facebook. If you've been reading this blog regularly, you probably...
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