April 5, 2008
April 4, 2008
April 3, 2008
April 2, 2008
April 1, 2008
Lieberman Calls Democratic Party ‘hyperpartisan’
The Boston Globe, March 31, 2008
Senator Joe Lieberman blasted the Democratic Party yesterday as protectionist, isolationist, and hyperpartisan.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Lieberman, Independent of Connecticut, said it is not the same party that made him its vice presidential candidate in 2000.
“It’s not the Bill Clinton-Al Gore party, which was strong internationalists, strong on defense, pro-trade, pro-reform in our domestic government,” he said. “It’s been effectively taken over by a small group on the left of the party that is protectionist, isolationist, and very, very hyperpartisan. So it pains me.”
Lieberman, who won reelection to the Senate as an independent after losing the 2006 Connecticut Democratic primary, still caucuses with Democrats. But he has endorsed Republican John McCain’s presidential bid, and said yesterday that McCain reflects the legacy of John F. Kennedy.
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March 31, 2008
March 30, 2008
Maureen Dowd: Surrender Already, Dorothy
Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, March 30, 2008
It’s all about the magic, really.
And whether we can take a flier on this skinny guy with the strange name and braided ancestry to help us get it back.
Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France and a strong supporter of the United States, recently observed that President Bush has done such a number on our image in the world that no one will be able to restore the luster.
“I think the magic is over,” he said.
Pas si vite, mon vieux. In terms of style, the Obamas could give Carla Bruni-Sarkozy a run for her euros. And at least Obama is not in a fantasy world on Iraq, as W. and John McCain are, insisting it’s improving while we see it exploding.
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March 29, 2008
Obama and the Class Question
Richard Florida, The Globe and Mail, March 29, 2008
For the past two weeks, all eyes have focused on Barack Obama and race. A couple of weeks ago, it was Hillary Clinton’s gender. A month before that, it was all about the Obama surge among young voters.
Pundits on all sides have framed this election – and especially the Democratic primary – as turning on the traditional fault lines of race, gender and generation.
The talk shows go on and on about how Mr. Obama is attracting black and young voters and how Ms. Clinton finds her voice among women and baby boomers.
But what is seldom discussed and yet most interesting about this election is not any young-vs.-old, black-vs.-white, or male-vs.-female dynamic.
At bottom, both the Democratic primary and the upcoming general election turn on an even deeper economic and social force: class.
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Paul Krugman: Voodoo Health Economics
Paul Krugman, The New York Times, April 5, 2008
Elizabeth Edwards has cancer. John McCain has had cancer in the past. Last weekend, Mrs. Edwards bluntly pointed out that neither of them would be able to get insurance under Mr. McCain’s health care plan.
It’s about time someone said that and, more generally, made the case that Mr. McCain’s approach to health care is based on voodoo economics — not the supply-side voodoo that claims that cutting taxes increases revenues (though Mr. McCain says that, too), but the equally foolish claim, refuted by all available evidence, that the magic of the marketplace can produce cheap health care for everyone.
As Mrs. Edwards pointed out, the McCain health plan would do nothing to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to those, like her and Mr. McCain, who have pre-existing medical conditions.
The McCain campaign’s response was condescending and dismissive — a statement that Mrs. Edwards doesn’t understand the comprehensive nature of the senator’s approach, which would harness “the power of competition to produce greater coverage for Americans,” reducing costs so that even people with pre-existing conditions could afford care.
This is nonsense on multiple levels.
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