Roundup: Media's Take

July 27, 2004

Michael Barone: Why Conventions Have Become So Dull

Michael Barone, in the WSJ (July 26, 2004): ...There is no way to reproduce the old conventions. I stumbled upon the reason why in the '80s, when I was researching my political history narrative "Our Country." In his book on the 1936 election, FDR's campaign manager James A. Farley revealed how he was able to predict, accurately, that Roosevelt would carry 46 of 48 states. He took the e

July 26, 2004

Convention Speeches that Have Made History

Tom Zeller, Jr., and Hugh K. Truslow, in the NYT (July 25, 2004): The nominee is a foregone conclusion and platform debates long ago gave way to choreographed displays of party unity. So what constitutes drama at a national political convention? For most Americans - and certainly for the news media, which will lean in most attentively during prime-time hours - the drama now resides al

July 26, 2004

Modern Political Conventions Belie Raucous Past

Reuters (July 25, 2004): When William Jennings Bryan rose at the 1896 Democratic convention in Chicago to deliver what would become one of the most famous speeches in U.S. history, he was not even a candidate for president, much less a leading figure in the party.The 36-year-old junior congressman from Nebraska stepped to the podium to voice support for a controversial resolution advocating the free c

July 26, 2004

Do Political Conventions Matter?

Peter Grier, in the Christian Science Monitor (July 26, 2004): The first party convention in United States history was held in 1831 in Baltimore by the Anti-Masons, a tiny movement dedicated to the notion that the benign fraternity of Freemasonry was in fact an insidious political cabal. Strangely, that convention tapped as its presidential candidate a man who was himself a Mason. Some would say it has been all

July 26, 2004

William Raspberry: 9/11 Commission Was Simplistic and Politicized

William Raspberry, in the Washington Post (July 26, 2004): For all its somber-faced seriousness, the report of the Sept. 11 commission turns out to be a childlike explanation of what went so tragically wrong nearly three years ago. It acknowledges the obvious, but it manages to avoid any semblance of individual responsibility."The lamp broke," a child might say. Or, as the report would

July 25, 2004

Michael Kinsley: The Folly of 'Liberal' Self-Denial

Michael Kinsley, in the Washington Post (July 25, 2004): As all eyes turn to Boston, where the world's oldest political party meets in con- vention beginning tomorrow evening, the Democrats face both a challenge and an opportunity. They must demonstrate that they have abandoned McGovernite liberal extremism and have restored their party to the mainstream moderate tradition of Harry S. Truman and John F

July 23, 2004

WW II Guidebook to Iraq Contains Lessons That Are Relevant Today

Rick Hampson, in USA Today (July 16, 2004): ...Since invading Iraq, Americans have discovered that the country is a military, political and cultural minefield. But it's a lesson they could have learned from a pocket-sized booklet published six decades ago by the U.S. government.A Short Guide to Iraq was written to educate World War II servicemen about a place most of them had never heard of. It describes an Iraq familiar to soldiers there today: the heat, th

July 23, 2004

Norman Solomon: Girly-Men, Gays and Macho Politics

Norman Solomon, in his media beat column (July 22, 2004): [Norman Solomon is co-author, with Reese Erlich, of “Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You.” His columns and other writings can be found at http://www.normansolomon.com.] With two words, the governor of California has managed to highlight the confluence of anti-gay bias and misogyny. Open contempt for “girlie men” would have raised fewer eyebrows in t

July 23, 2004

Sharon's Advice to the Jews of France Is Wrong ... But He's Right There's a Problem

Andre Glucksmann, in the WSJ (July 22, 2004): [Mr. Glucksmann is the author, most recently, of"Ouest Contre Ouest" (West Against West), published in Paris by Plon.]On Sunday, in Jerusalem, Ariel Sharon solemnly called on "our brothers in France [to] move to Israel, as soon as possible" to flee the "the wildest anti-Semitism there." T

July 23, 2004

Dilip Hiro: Why Kirkuk Is the Obvious Flashpoint with Iraq and Its Neighbors

Dilip Hiro, at TomDispatch.com (July 23, 2004): [Dilip Hiro's latest book is Secrets and Lies: Operation"Iraqi Freedom" and After, a sequel to Iraq: In the Eye of the Storm (both Nation Books). Hiro is based in London, writes regularly for the New York Tim

July 23, 2004

Slate: Whatever Happened to States Rights? Don't Ask Conservatives

Steve Chapman, at Slate.com (July 22, 2004): The modern Republican Party is the offspring of Barry Goldwater, whose 1960 manifesto "The Conscience of a Conservative" provided the intellectual framework for a movement that would eventually raise up Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, and George W. Bush. Goldwater saw the future as a choice between states' rights and individual liberty on the one hand, and centralized tyranny on t

July 22, 2004

L.A. Times: G.O.P. Has Found Another Whipping Boy

From the Los Angeles Times (July 22, 2004): There is not much to rue about the departure of Clinton-era national security advisor Sandy Berger from his unpaid, informal advisory role in John Kerry's campaign. Berger has always been a plodder, unimaginative but diligent. Only now has he become interesting, as his apparent mishandling of classified documents on

July 21, 2004

Joe Wilson Responds to the WSJ et al's Right-Wing Revisionism

Joseph C. Wilson IV, in the Los Angeles Times (July 21, 2004): For the last two weeks, I have been subjected — along with my wife, Valerie Plame — to a partisan Republican smear campaign. In right-wing blogs and on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and the National Review, I've been accused of being a liar and, worse, a traitor. This is t

July 21, 2004

Robert Kuttner: Class Should Be Working to Kerry's Advantage

Robert Kuttner, in the Boston Globe (July 21, 2004): SOCIAL CLASS is one of the most explosive issues in American politics. Like any explosive, it can dramatically transform a landscape -- or blow up in the user's face. There are far more ordinary wage-earning people than wealthy investors and corporate moguls, but the political right has done far better

July 21, 2004

Jeff Cohen: Nader's Now Getting Real Help from Republicans (Guess Why)

Jeff Cohen, in a column emailed to HNN (July 20, 2004): Four years after the Florida debacle, with nearly all of Ralph Nader's longtime progressive allies now tactically supporting Kerry in swing states to retire the Bush regime, the Nader campaign has created none of the grassroots thunder of 2000. Indeed, it's been a hollow enterprise -- attracting a few leftwing sects and polemicists. Given this vacuum, it's no surprise that pro-Bush forces have rushed to Nader's

July 21, 2004

The Latest Presidential Rankings

Leonard Leo, in the Boston Globe (July 19, 2004): [Leonard Leo is Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Studies] NEXT WEEK'S Democratic Convention is a national moment when Americans are by turns nostalgic about the presidency and unsparing in their comparisons of the candidates. Nostalgia comes about because politic

July 20, 2004

Felix Rohatyn: Why I Am Voting for John Kerry

Felix Rohatyn, in the WSJ (July 20, 2004): As a first-generation American I care passionately for this country and I fear for its future. And as an active Democrat, I support the Kerry-Edwards ticket for two fundamental reasons: First, I believe that their view of America and of our domestic economic and social priorities will improve the prospects of a better future for all Americans; and second, I believe that their view of America's position in the world and its relationsh

July 20, 2004

WSJ: Joe Wilson's Story Has Now Been Discredited

Editorial in the WSJ (July 20, 2004): After U.S. and British intelligence reports exposed his falsehoods in the last 10 days, Joe Wilson is finally defending himself. We're therefore glad to return to this story one more time, because there are some larger lessons here about the law, and for the Beltway media and Bush White House. Mr. Wilson's defense, in essence, is that the "Republican-written" Senate Intelligence Committee report is a partisan hatche

July 20, 2004

Michael Barone: Bush Didn't Lie ... His Critics Have

Michael Barone, in frontpagemag.com (July 20, 2004):Official reports issued the last two weeks have conclusively refuted those who have been arguing that "BUSH LIED" about the dangers from Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction programs. The first report was that of the Senate Intelligence Committee. That committee has been rent by partisan divisions over the last year, but the report was unanimous. One prime conclusion of the report is

July 19, 2004

Germans Are Now Finding Heroes in WW II to Celebrate

Clare Murphy, at BBC News Online (July 19, 2004): Less than a decade ago, a book by an American historian which declared that the Holocaust was possible because Germans had a congenital urge to kill Jews shot to the top of the bestseller list in Germany. Daniel Goldhagen, author of Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, was awarded the country's prestigious Democracy Prize in 1997. The honour had last been bestowed upon east German ac