Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Obama rebounds in polls
Heading into tomorrow night’s State of the Union address, President Barack Obama is riding a wave of rising approval ratings. Most polls over the past week show Obama at over a 50 percent approval rating. Real Clear Politics’ average of polls (graph above) finds 51.0 percent approve, the President’s highest rating since November 2009. This is quite a […]
MLK Day
Remembering Martin Luther King on his Day. Remarkable man. This video is of King speaking in Montgomery, Alabama in March 1965. It reminds us of one of his great talents: his oration. Such poetry in his powerful words, such passion, and made all the more important because he was backed by a real struggle. Note how the lyrics of the Battle […]
Observations on Obama’s speech at the Tucson memorial service
Praise has been heaped on President Obama for his speech at the Tucson memorial service last Wednesday, from both the right (“terrific” according to John McCain) and the left (“magic” wrote Gail Collins). If you missed it, you can watch the video here, or read the text here. For the most part, Obama’s speech was a […]
Palin and British wishful-thinking
The word on this side of the pond is that some Brits are filled with glee from “news” stories like this one in the Guardian (“Sarah Palin hit by fallout from Arizona shooting spree”), which predict that the Arizona shootings will result in the demise of Sarah Palin. I believe these Brits are misinformed, and as guilty as the liberal commentators over here in jumping to wishful-thinking conclusions. […]
Most Americans believe Tucson shooting unrelated to rhetoric
Many liberal commentators have put forward that heated rhetoric and the political “climate” were important factors that explain Jared Loughner’s shootings in Tucson, Arizona on the weekend. Well, a majority of Americans don’t agree. According to a CBS News poll out today, 57 percent of people said the harsh political tone had nothing to with the Arizona shootings, while 32 percent said it […]
Falsely accusing the Tea Party of murder
Liberal commentators’ rush to blame the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords on heated political rhetoric exposes their censoriousness and intolerance. Read my spiked article in full here.
Shield bill is a threat to free speech
In an op-ed in today’s New York Times, University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone sounds a warning over the threat to free speech posed by the so-called Shield bill. The bill has been introduced in response to the Wikileaks disclosures, and would amend to Espionage Act of 1917 to make it a crime for any […]
2010’s Heroes and Zeroes
Today’s spiked reviews the year 2010 with a series of articles. In the lead article, “A year of intellectual rebels and misanthropic moaners,” spiked readers and writers name their heroes and zeroes of the year. Here are mine: HERO: Diane Ravitch, whose bestselling book The Death and Life of the Great American School System made her the most […]
The tax deal: short-term victory for Obama
The big news in American politics recently has been the surprising tax deal President Obama made with the Republicans in Congress. Tax cuts introduced in 2001 and 2003 during the George W. Bush presidency were positioned at that time as “temporary”, and were due to expire at the end of this year. They were a […]
Palin: a creation of the liberal-left
I have argued for some time that the prominence of Sarah Palin reflects mainly liberals’ fascination with her (see here) . Liberals have obsessively followed this ex-governor, ex-VP candidate, and consequently built her up into something more than she is. In turn, liberals’ hatred for her has made her sympathetic, and cohered support among people who believe that, […]