UPDATE: TFN Insider has been getting heavy traffic from folks looking to read more about the battle over teaching evolution in Texas public schools. Why does this debate over public school science curriculum standards matter outside Texas? Publishers will use the new standards to create new textbooks. Because Texas is such a large market for textbook sales, publishers typically craft their textbooks for this state and then sell those books to other schools across the country. So the results of this curriculum process could have consequences for far more than just the 4.6 million children in Texas public schools.
Clay Burell
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Barry Levinson: The Future of Televised Debates - Annotated
Change the word DEBATE to EDUCATION in this post, and you have a….
“How-NOT-to Use TECHNOLOGY in the CLASSROOM” post.
Very worth a read in that context.
But I’ll leave that softball for somebody else to clobber. It’s pretty obvious to me.
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This was a hyper-version of a TV debate. Turbo-charged. The screen, in addition to the actual debate participants, is filled with information. On the left and right sides of the screen they have boxes where various talking heads can cast points as the debate is in progress, and at the bottom of the screen there is a graph responding to a specially selected group of “undecided” voters — the up and down movements of the chart, resembling some kind of EKG, show their feelings to every sentence that is spoken. One color for Male. One color for Female. Obama says something and points register on the screen. Paul Begala liked the comment. William Bennett was unmoved. And so the debate went on. At one point I realized I was no longer listening to what was being said by the candidates. All the bells and whistles had my attention.
- Really - read the whole thing, and think about its lesson to tech-drunk teachers.
Don’t get me wrong: I know there’s a place for edtech. But there’s also a TOO MUCH of it. - post by cburell
- Really - read the whole thing, and think about its lesson to tech-drunk teachers.
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Television has never found an idea it can’t exploit. It doesn’t matter what it is. Anything that can be made more lively, is more lively. Tweak it, make it more fun, and we will watch. And we will like it. And we will justify it.
Some say we are in the early days of the American version of the fall of the Roman Empire. Therefore, is television the electronic version of the Roman Circus? The events at the Coliseum might be cruel and inhumane, but those leaving the arena sure had a good time. Taste and consequence be damned. “That Christian sure was fast, best I’ve seen in weeks! Let’s go to the baths.”
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But the CNN debate innovations are just the beginning I think. Maybe the real debate event will adopt some of those CNN bells and whistles. Include them in the process to enhance the drama. Maybe even add a truth panel that rings a buzzer when a candidate says something false. Depending on the degree of misinformation, that will determine the point deductions. Buzzers going off have always added fun to quiz shows in the past and refs have used them for dramatic effect during sporting events. There are so many possible improvements that can be made. Content? Forget it. There’s too much fun to be had in flashy presentation. After all, the band played on while the Titanic sank.
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Shelly Palmer: Obama Would Create Cabinet Level Technology Officer
One for the edtech groupies
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If elected President, Barack Obama would create the first-ever Cabinet level Chief Technology Officer. Obama thinks that the US is not doing nearly enough to create jobs in the tech sector and believes an executive position would better the situation. Google CEO Eric Schmidt must agree, as he is endorsing Obama.
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Keli Goff: Thank You Rush Limbaugh (and Pat Buchanan)
Really interesting conclusion on this one. Are the likes of Limbaugh and Buchanan finally being left behind by an America that’s outgrown them? Let’s hope so.
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Conservatives Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan both sought to tie Powell’s endorsement to his race.
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Instead of diminishing Powell’s reputation at all, Limbaugh and Buchanan’s words have so far, only further diminished theirs. Watching clips of their comments I actually felt a great deal of compassion for both men. Clearly their frustration and fear at realizing that our country is no longer what it was in 1968 — and never will be again — or even what it was in 1998 when it was paralyzed by partisanship, has rendered both men lost; as though a time machine accidentally stranded them, in some strange, multi-cultural, forward-thinking universe, and they as relics from the past feel increasingly, irrelevant, outnumbered and out of place.
But I believe that I am not the only one who feels sorry for them. There are plenty of Americans, even those who may not agree with Obama’s politics, or Powell’s endorsement, who heard the sad rhetoric of these men and thought to themselves, “That does not represent me or the America that I believe in.”
And for sparking that revelation, I want to say to Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan, THANK YOU.
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Service: Online Only: The New Yorker
A photo that should become iconic. Read the tombstone closely, including its symbol.
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Bob Ostertag: Colin Powell, Barack Obama, Specialist Khan, and You - Annotated
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The fact that it was, finally, an African American Republican Army general who finally stood up and denounced Republican Muslim-baiting as un-American is not surprising. Rather, it highlights the ambiguous role of the US military, which has so often been a tool of oppression beyond our borders, yet was one of the first major American institutions to racially integrate domestically, long before schools (not to mention churches which remain highly segregated to this day).
- That point about churches is really interesting. It’s easy to understand neighborhood churches being segregated, but people now drive long distances to go to mega-churches and whatnot. So I wonder what stories people have about segragation attempts in their churches?
Experience in international schools has shown me that self-segregation seems a common instinct among people as well (or is that just too much time in Korea lately?). - post by cburell
- That point about churches is really interesting. It’s easy to understand neighborhood churches being segregated, but people now drive long distances to go to mega-churches and whatnot. So I wonder what stories people have about segragation attempts in their churches?
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one reader wrote “call me a bigot but as a solider I feel gay don’t belong in the army, but u wouldn’t understand unless u served,” which resulted in this shockingly eloquent response:
I am an American.
I am an Army veteran.
I am a gay man.I have heard all too often that “good Americans” (meaning people not like me) have served and died in order for people like me to lead a life that people like you might describe as being other than truly American. The fact is, people like ME — good, decent Americans — have served and died so that people like YOU can imagine living in a world of intolerance and discrimination. People like ME have served alongside people like YOU.
This country belongs to ALL OF US !
- Powerful statement. I never knew anybody (openly) gay in the South, where I grew up. Moving to L.A. opened my eyes to what has continued to be true in my experience over the subsequent 25 years: gay men have always been far friendlier and compassionate than the Bible-belt Southrerners that surrounded me in my childhood.
It’s good to hear this gay veteran set the record gaily forward. - post by cburell
- Powerful statement. I never knew anybody (openly) gay in the South, where I grew up. Moving to L.A. opened my eyes to what has continued to be true in my experience over the subsequent 25 years: gay men have always been far friendlier and compassionate than the Bible-belt Southrerners that surrounded me in my childhood.
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Karen Heller: Obama’s forte: Cool competence | Philadelphia Inquirer | 10/21/2008 - Annotated
I love how the 24/7, everything is recorded and archived and easily retrievable media is shaping up to be a FORCE THAT KEEPS POLITICIANS HONEST. (Or at least more careful.)
Check out this journalist’s use of McCain in December versus McCain in September.
It’s one of a million examples of how ridiculous candidates can make themselves look if they veer too far from their historical record.
Anybody have the video on these interviews? A simple splicing of the raw footage into a 30-second clip would be a sure viral hit.
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But economics is not McCain’s, you know, thing.
“The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” he said in December. A month earlier he mentioned that, with a vice presidential candidate, “you also look for people who maybe have talents you don’t, or experience or knowledge you don’t, as well.” He said he’d look for “somebody who’s really well grounded in economics.”
Oops. Palin’s talent is energy.
- If anybody mixes a video of these two interviews ending with the announcement of Palin as running mate, let me know. - post by cburell
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Barack Obama remains calm in the most heated moments, a tremendous palliative for an anxious electorate. And he’s learned about the economy, which makes McCain’s resistance to do so appear arrogant and foolish.
- EDUCATORS should love this insight: Obama HAS shown himself to be a “life-long learner” on this front. He really does seem to do job-related homework - which is probably why it’s so easy for him to stick to the issues high-road: he studies them, and can talk about what he’s learning.
After the proud “I DON’T READ” (or worse, “I READ CAMUS’ EXISTENTIAL NOVELS”) Bush/Cheney years, an intellectual (and a writer) for president seems somehow fantastical. That’s how bad America has become. - post by cburell
- EDUCATORS should love this insight: Obama HAS shown himself to be a “life-long learner” on this front. He really does seem to do job-related homework - which is probably why it’s so easy for him to stick to the issues high-road: he studies them, and can talk about what he’s learning.
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The more Palin talks, the more it’s clear that governing her state is inadequate experience for the vice presidency. That’s because Alaska is rich in resources, flush in capital and scarce in residents, the absolute inverse of the nation.
The McCain campaign’s talk about grassroots organizers, domestic terrorists and socialists is suspect. If you are a cynical person, you might say that such chatter stokes racial anxieties without mentioning race. If you’re an optimist, you might believe that most Americans are better than that.
- This woman’s journalism is so lean and compressed. She’s an analytic laser-beam. - post by cburell
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McCain’s Davis Raps Obama’s “Secret” $300 Million - Marc Ambinder
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A day after Barack Obama announced his record $150,000,000 September fundraising kitty, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said that if Obama didn’t make his small donor database public, he’d be violating the standards of transparency his campaign has set.
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Barack Obama turns rivals’ words on them in Florida - Los Angeles Times
McCain was, by his own definition these days, a “socialist” himself when he opposed Bush’s “Republican socialism” for the wealthy in ‘01 and ‘03, before flip-flopping to support it in ‘06.
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Soon after, the Democrat used McCain’s words to turn back his criticism of Obama’s tax plan. The Arizona senator has said his rival would cripple the economy with a massive tax hike; Obama said his plan would cut taxes for 95% of working families, raising them only for the richest Americans.
“It’s true that I want to roll back the Bush tax cuts,” Obama said. “John McCain calls that socialism. What he forgets, conveniently, is that just a few years ago, he himself said those Bush tax cuts were irresponsible. He said he couldn’t ‘in good conscience’ support a tax [cut] where the benefits went to the wealthy at the expense of ‘middle-class Americans who most need tax relief.’ That’s his quote. Well, he was right then, and I am right now.“
McCain voted against Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 but supported their renewal in 2006, saying business and investors needed “a stable and predictable tax policy” to sustain economic growth.
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Republican socialism — baltimoresun.com
Great title. McCain wants to extend Bush’s “Republican (NOT “conservative”) Socialism” for the wealthy.
It’s argued clearly below.
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It’s hard to understand the logic of Sen. John McCain’s charge that his Democratic opponent’s proposal to cut taxes for Americans earning less than $250,000 a year is socialism. Sen. Barack Obama wants to redistribute the wealth by taxing the rich and giving to the poor, Mr. McCain complains. But a look at recent tax and income statistics tell a different tale. It is the rich who have been earning more and paying a smaller share of their income in taxes in recent years while middle-class and poor families have struggled with stagnant income and an unrelenting tax burden.
Truth be told, it’s mostly wealthy investors who are enjoying the benefits of socialism these days in the form of hundreds of billions of dollars in government loans and investments designed to rescue banks and other financial institutions and avert a catastrophic failure. The U.S. government hasn’t nationalized banks, but it has come close with its interventions and guarantees for eight big lenders.
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McCain: Obama a job-killing socialist - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos
Remember how Bush beat Kerry by seizing on Kerry’s use of the word “global” in the last debate? And how he distorted Kerry’s use of the word - he meant it in the sense of “systematic” or “nuanced” - by claiming Kerry meant he wouldn’t lead against the will of “global” opinion?
I remember how aghast I was to see this obvious distortion grow legs in the last weeks of the election, when anybody with a vocabulary and the ability to read Kerry’s sentence including the word could see that wasn’t his meaning. And I remember how disappointed I was that the media didn’t correct this obvious ploy at all.
Below, we see McCain doing the same thing with Obama’s comment that he wants to “spread the wealth around” by increasing taxes on the over a quarter million dollars a year set, so the other roughly 95 percent of us wouldn’t carry as much of the tax burden.
McCain and ex-Bush campaigner Rick Davis (JM’s manager) have seized on it in a full-court press to label Obama a “Socialist.”
It’s silly, and would be laughable, if only it weren’t being repeated in headlines that don’t laugh with us. Here we go again.
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“After months of campaign trail eloquence… we finally learned what Senator Obama’s economic goal is. As he told Joe, he wants to ’spread the wealth around,” McCain told a boisterous crowd gathered on a high school football field in Belton, Missouri.
“If I’m elected president, I won’t raise taxes on anyone, especially small businesses. Senator Obama will and that will force them to cut jobs.”
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Palin Breaks With McCain On Gay Marriage Ban - From The Road - Annotated
“Palindrone: a sentence that makes no more sense read forward than it does when read backwards.” — LA Times last month.
Here’s another zinger:
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“I am, in my own, state, I have voted along with the vast majority of Alaskans who had the opportunity to vote to amend our Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman. I wish on a federal level that that’s where we would go because I don’t support gay marriage,” Palin said.
“I’m not going to be out there judging individuals, sitting in a seat of judgment telling what they can and can’t do, should and should not do, but I certainly can express my own opinion here and take actions that I believe would be best for traditional marriage and that’s casting my votes and speaking up for traditional marriage that, that instrument that it’s the foundation of our society is that strong family and that’s based on that traditional definition of marriage, so I do support that.”
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When the federal marriage amendment was being debated in 2004, John McCain broke from his party’s leadership and took to the Senate floor to denounce it in notably stark language.
“The constitutional amendment we’re debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans,” McCain said. “It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them.”
- McCain’s syntax, if nothing else, remains respectable. - post by cburell
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Conservatives fearful as election draws near | Politics | Reuters
This is an example of sloppy language. Many “Conservatives” have quit the Republican Party because the New Bush Republicans are no longer “Conservative” in the classic sense.
So this headline is misleading. It should read, “Bush Republicans fearful as election draws near” - because those are the “base” that McCain/Palin has allowed their former Bush campaign manager to cater to.
Read yesterday’s post for several examples of REAL conservatives - philosophical ones, not brand name ones - who have jumped ship on McCain for _betraying_ Conservatism.
And read today’s for conservative icon Colin Powell’s similar move.
Much more below the fold….
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A Senator’s Honor comes cheap these days by Elizabeth Madrigal — politics, election 08, obama for president | Gather - Annotated
Ouch.
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John Sidney McCain, III would like the average voter to think of him like Sarah Palin does. A regular ole Joe Six-Pack. My, my, that fits, doesn’t it? The grandson and son of Admirals. A Navy pilot allowed to crash three planes and still keep his wings.
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What really bothers me about McCain, however, is not his background. People cannot help being born with a silver spoon in their mouth, nor can they be held responsible for the grand success of their forbearers. They must be judged on their own failures and accomplishments, which an amazing article in Rolling Stone Magazine seeks to set forth for your perusal.
Read the whole story here: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain- The RS article is an eye-opener. Even CNN’s one-hour bio of McCain showed very little that spelled either substance or success. He kept screwing up, and his Admiral father kept bailing him out.Divorcing his wife to marry Cindy gave him a piggy-bank into the congress via Arizona. He used her money to buy a house in a district he could win, and did so.
His Lebanon stand against Reagan was right, but also safe. It won him a maverick’s reputation. But beyond that, there’s not much there there re: the maverick thing. - post by cburell
- The RS article is an eye-opener. Even CNN’s one-hour bio of McCain showed very little that spelled either substance or success. He kept screwing up, and his Admiral father kept bailing him out.Divorcing his wife to marry Cindy gave him a piggy-bank into the congress via Arizona. He used her money to buy a house in a district he could win, and did so.
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Senator Obama has been more than forthcoming with his ideas. He is not ‘waiting’ until he is president, as his generous and fine intellect has been working on ways to keep America the America I know and love. He had been trying to prevent these problems, too, but nobody listened to a Junior Senator, so he is running for president. They did listen to you Senator McCain.
Oh, I’m sorry, I did not mean to denigrate your contributions. You have had some ideas too, John III. They all began and ended with the concept of deregulation, which is exactly what Charles Keating, a convicted felon, used to cheat people. He was your friend, vacation buddy, and even your families were close. Didn’t you suspect something? Looking back it seems obvious to all of us that you should have, but you were used to the fine life, weren’t you? Nothing too good for John Sidney McCain, III.
So when you are asked about your ideas for an economic recovery, what do you answer? Who is Barack Hussein Obama? Nice one, John, but according to the polls that doesn’t seem to be working too well for you.
Obama has had some brilliant ideas to try to calm the panic that is tumbling our economy. These have included increasing the FDIC insurance on bank deposits to $250,000 from $100,000 (a limit which was set in the 1930’s). Now he is suggesting that there be a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures and that any bank that receives a cash injection from the government be compelled to renegotiate and/or assist homeowners having trouble making their payments.
This is the kind of thinking and action we need on the national level. No more partisanship and fighting or denigrating the other candidate’s patriotism, heritage, religion or lack thereof, or commitment to this country. Before you, John Sidney McCain, III, have the b*lls to ask Barack Hussein Obama about his friendships, I think you have more than a little ‘esplainin’ to do.
- More people are turning the “middle name” rhetoric the McCain campaign started against “Barrack HUSSEIN Obama” against “John SYDNEY McCain THE THIRD.”Turnabout is fair play. - post by cburell
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Average Joe can’t fix America’s pipes | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press - Annotated
Mitch Albom at his finest.
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McCain said that with Obama in charge, guys like Joe would “not be able to realize the American dream of owning their own business.”
Jackpot! Joe the Plumber, to Republicans, was instantly a working-class hero, a good, honest family man who just wanted to start a company and was gonna get socked by Obama’s socialist ideas.
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McCain said that with Obama in charge, guys like Joe would “not be able to realize the American dream of owning their own business.”
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And then Joe opened his mouth.
Nothing is as it seems to be
It turns out Joe has no plumber’s license.
Joe isn’t in the plumbers union.
Joe never did a plumbers apprenticeship.
Joe’s business likely would not be taxed under Obama’s proposal.
Joe might even get a tax cut under Obama’s proposal.
Joe doesn’t believe in Social Security.
Joe’s first name isn’t Joe, it’s Samuel.
And Samuel hasn’t paid his taxes.
And that’s just as we go to press. By the time you read this, Joe may be a member of the Weathermen. None of this surprises me. It is what you get in a country that seems to think everything is a form of “American Idol.”
Look. There is a reason we call “the average guy” average. Because he’s in the middle. Average. When you aim for the White House, to lead the free world, to hold the fate of the Earth in your hands, you shouldn’t aspire to average. And this election shouldn’t be about average.
- More blame to lay at the feet of Rick Davis, McCain’s Bush-man campaign manager. First, he doesn’t vet Sarah Palin before choosing her, and discovers too late he’s got a witch-doctor preacher, a pregnant-out-of-wedlock teen, and an abuse of power ethics scandal on his hands.Now they run with Joe the Plumber before doing their homework, and have egg in the face again.
Little-known fact: Joe is a relative - how close, I don’t know - of Enron CEO and embezzlement crooks (and McCain crony) Charles Keating. Google it. This may or may not be a plant from the start. - post by cburell
- More blame to lay at the feet of Rick Davis, McCain’s Bush-man campaign manager. First, he doesn’t vet Sarah Palin before choosing her, and discovers too late he’s got a witch-doctor preacher, a pregnant-out-of-wedlock teen, and an abuse of power ethics scandal on his hands.Now they run with Joe the Plumber before doing their homework, and have egg in the face again.
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Now, personally, I am no fan of Obama’s tax plan — not because of him, but because I have never seen higher taxes result in more efficient government. But I also know that whatever Obama or McCain are touting now is unlikely to pass as is. Remember Bill Clinton’s health care plan? He ran on that, and after eight years, it still hadn’t happened.
By the time the House and the Senate get done with tax proposals, they rarely look like the originals, so who knows who will pay what next year?
What we do know is grabbing the “regular” guy and holding him up is an old political trick that rarely works. And sometimes it backfires on both sides.
- Uncommon common sense here. - post by cburell
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Good for Dallas for taking on this classic bit of knee-jerk labeling.
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William Wallace, a former vice president and chief operating officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said the country’s progressive tax code, which Mr. McCain does not propose abolishing, is “socialist in nature.
“It’s a term that gets people’s attention, and therefore I understand why a political candidate might want to use it,” said Dr. Wallace, a professor at the University of North Texas. “But to say we are headed toward socialism is a vast overstatement in my book.”
Congress’ decision this month to allow the federal government to invest directly in failing banks was the most significant government intervention in financial markets in decades – and Mr. McCain voted for it along with Mr. Obama.
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McCain likens Obama to European socialists - International Herald Tribune - Annotated
–and the excerpt below shows we should liken McCain, tax-wise, to George W. Bush.
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McCain wants to retain all of the tax cuts that Bush won from Congress in 2001 and later years, reductions that applied at every level of income. Obama favors retaining Bush-era cuts except on taxpayers making more than about $250,000, whose taxes would revert to higher levels in effect a few years ago.
- Isn’t it clear that neither candidate will have the luxury of keeping taxes low in this meltdown, unless they do it at the expense of a greater debt and a greater burden on future generations? - post by cburell
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Obama, McCain aides rumble on Fox: The Swamp
I’m really trying to be impartial here. Watch the video yourself and decide if I’m right: Every time Obama’s manager started to make a point, McCain manager Davis interrupted, talked over him, and never stopped. It’s a mirror of the way he’s run the campaign and debates: attack and re-direct whenever the other side tries to articulate a serious point. Davis is incredibly aggressive and obnoxious.
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I say forget this week’s last presidential debate between Senators Barack Obama and John McCain. Let’s instead schedule a cage fight between David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, and Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager.
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Good parsing of a serious omission by a Washington Post journalist about ACORN and the bogus issue of “rampant voter fraud.”
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In an October 18 Washington
Post article,
staff writers Robert Barnes and Mary Pat Flaherty quoted McCain campaign
manager Rick Davis’ claim that reports of investigations into the
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) have suggested
“rampant voter fraud as it relates to voter registration.” But in
reporting Davis’
remark, Barnes and
Flaherty did not point out that actual instances of illegal votes cast as a
result of registration fraud, e.g., using false names, are extremely rare.
Indeed, following Sen. John McCain’s assertion during the October 15
presidential debate
that ACORN is “on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest
frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of
democracy,” the Post’s Alec MacGillis noted in a “Live
Fact Check” of the debate: “[T]here is a difference between
submitting bogus forms and actual voter fraud. It is not voter fraud until
someone shows up at the polls pretending to be [Dallas Cowboys quarterback] Tony Romo or
Mickey Mouse and tries to vote. And there is no evidence yet of a wholesale
push to send people to the polls under bogus names.”Indeed, U.S. Department of
Justice crime statistics cast doubt on the existence of widespread voter fraud.
According to a report by the
Justice Department’s Criminal Division on prosecutions between October 2002 and
September 2005, the Justice Department charged 95 people with “election
fraud” and convicted 55. Among those, however, just 17 individuals were
convicted for casting fraudulent ballots;
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Is McCain ‘race-baiting’? - Los Angeles Times - Annotated
Goldberg cites the examples, then tries to dismiss them. I’m not convinced. Emphasizing “Hussein” in speeches and rallies clearly tries to paint Obama not as an African-American, but as an ARAB. So it’s post-9/11 racism, in a subtle way.
Regardless, it’s old news. Now they’re painting him as a “socialist” for saying he’d re-distribute the tax burden upwards from Bush’s policies. And that’s outrageous, in light of McCain’s own “socialist” plan to have the US government buy mortgages from insolvent homeowners.
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Still, I can’t help feeling that the examples this year are ambiguous. I’m not saying McCain is or isn’t a racist. How would I know what’s in his heart? But in a country whose racial history is as tragic and as raw as ours, these are serious charges that shouldn’t be thrown around lightly, the way Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) seemed to do last week when he irresponsibly compared McCain’s campaign to George Wallace’s.
If people are going to make charges of racism, they should back them up.
- Lewis was concerned about McCain/Palin’s tardiness in condemning the cries of “kill him” and “off with his head” and “traitor” at the M/P rallies.Defenders say McCain stood up against them a couple of times. But he did so only after several days, while we all watched them on YouTube.
But McCain doesn’t know how to use the internet, by his own admission, and Palin can’t name anything she reads - so maybe neither of them were aware of it.
Which brings us back to campaign manager Rick Davis, who surely should be monitoring the web for developments, and crafting timely responses to them. - post by cburell
- Lewis was concerned about McCain/Palin’s tardiness in condemning the cries of “kill him” and “off with his head” and “traitor” at the M/P rallies.Defenders say McCain stood up against them a couple of times. But he did so only after several days, while we all watched them on YouTube.
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Presidential Race | McCain “robo calls” draw bipartisan fire | Seattle Times Newspaper - Annotated
Again, McCain shows poor judgment in approving the dirty tactics Bush used against him.
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, made separate appeals to McCain on Friday. Collins faces a tough race for re-election and serves as a co-chairwoman of his Maine campaign.
“These kind of tactics have no place in Maine politics,” Collins spokesman Kevin Kelley said. “Sen. Collins urges the McCain campaign to stop these calls immediately.”
Voters in at least 10 closely contested states are receiving hundreds of thousands of the automated, or “robo,” calls — uniformly negative and sometimes misleading.
McCain has belittled such calls in the past: In the 2000 primaries, he was a target of misleading calls that included innuendo about his family, and blamed them in part for his loss to George W. Bush. In January, McCain described those calls as “scurrilous stuff.”
- The Republican candidates asking him to stop are probably worried they’ll be tarnished by what their party leader is doing, and lose to their own opponents as a result. - post by cburell
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Who is an elitist? - Salt Lake Tribune
Great point about the rhetoric of the campaign. Speech and debate (and rhetoric) teachers take note.
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I was listening to talk radio the other day. Some of the conservative hosts were referring to Sen. Barack Obama by his full given name Barack Hussein Obama, an obvious attempt to frighten voters. As Sen. John McCain continues to fall in the polls, conservatives are getting desperate.
Why not refer to McCain in the same way? John Sydney McCain III - so rich he doesn’t know if he has seven or eight houses or 13 or 14 vehicles!
Those on the right have a lot of guts calling Obama an elitist.
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What Went Wrong with the McCain Campaign
I see it the same way: selling his soul to Bush campaigner Rick Davis, and allowing him to run the same dirty campaigns he did with Bush.
McCain allowed it, so we have to chalk it up to his leadership. He could have “just said no” to all of this negativity. When he started losing, he didn’t.
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What Time doesn’t state is the obvious: that an African American candidate, with the name Barack Hussein Obama, started off the campaign with huge negatives piled up against him and for which he must compensate every day. So the real question that needs to be asked is this: Why is someone with all the advantages of white privilege trailing so badly against someone who has had the deck stacked against him from the get-go?
Let me answer the question in two words: Rick Davis.
Davis, of course, is John McCain’s campaign manager, and while Davis is never once mentioned by Scherer, Davis has, in fact, orchestrated every bad decision made by McCain during the final, critical months of the campaign.
Let’s take a look at four of them:
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My Australian friend John Larkin privately advised me to share some slices of Korean life in this space, and when John talks, I listen.1
So here are a couple of videos from a very creative trio of English teachers here in the greater Seoul area. I’m too old and too married to have their sort of life, so I’m happy for the chance to live it vicariously through their songs and videos. They’re wonderfully creative and thoroughly whacked - and they do a fine job of getting close to the line without crossing it.
Enjoy:
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- Even if I don’t always answer.
3 Comments
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At October 20, 2008, Sean wrote:
Wow. I thought the first one was a little bit funny in the first fifteen seconds. Then... I realized they really were gonna bring it home for the next 4:40. I was even more impressed. Good Sunday morning laugh- thanks!
ps- I'm feeling strangely hungry for squid.
Seans last blog post..Blogging: Building Bridges Within The Brain?
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At October 20, 2008, Jane Nicholls wrote:
One of the questions we ask when interviewing a new teacher for our school is "What would make you interesting to our kids?"
These guys would definitely be interesting to the kids!
Jane Nichollss last blog post..Can kids teach themselves?
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At October 20, 2008, Tim wrote:
I've watch the Kickin' It video several times and it always brings a smile to my face. It reminds me of my Hagwon days back in '97. The other one has good moments, too, but Kickin' It is still the original and the best.
Tims last blog post..KORCOS Follow Up
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Declarations - WSJ.com - Annotated
No surprise the Wall St. Journal is going to declare McCain more alive than he is, but the clips below are interesting for their insights into what, riffing off George Orwell, we might call:
POLITICS AND THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE:
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More than ever on the campaign trail, the candidates are dropping their G’s. Hardworkin’ families are strainin’ and tryin’a get ahead. It’s not only Sarah Palin but Mr. McCain, too, occasionally Mr. Obama, and, of course, George W. Bush when he darts out like the bird in a cuckoo clock to tell us we are in crisis. All of the candidates say “mom and dad”: “our moms and dads who are struggling.” This is Mr. Bush’s former communications adviser Karen Hughes’s contribution to our democratic life, that you cannot speak like an adult in politics now, that’s too austere and detached, snobby. No one can say mothers and fathers, it’s all now the faux down-home, patronizing—and infantilizing—moms and dads. Do politicians ever remember that in a nation obsessed with politics, our children—sorry, our kids—look to political figures for a model as to how adults sound?
- So true. It’s bad enough schools infantilize students, but now leaders are infantilizing adults,Thanks gobs, George Bush and Karen Hughes. We love ya. - post by cburell
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There has never been a second’s debate among liberals, to use an old-fashioned word that may yet return to vogue, over Mrs. Palin: She was a dope and unqualified from the start. Conservatives and Republicans, on the other hand, continue to battle it out: Was her choice a success or a disaster? And if one holds negative views, should one say so? For conservatives in general, but certainly for writers, the answer is a variation on Edmund Burke: You owe your readers not your industry only but your judgment, and you betray instead of serve them if you sacrifice it to what may or may not be their opinion.
- Love the quote from Burke.Reminds me of my “EDUBLOGGING WHILE ROME BURNS” post. - post by cburell
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But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? For seven weeks I’ve listened to her, trying to understand if she is Bushian or Reaganite—a spender, to speak briefly, whose political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy, and whose foreign policy is shaped by a certain emotionalism, or a conservative whose principles are rooted in philosophy, and whose foreign policy leans more toward what might be called romantic realism, and that is speak truth, know America, be America, move diplomatically, respect public opinion, and move within an awareness and appreciation of reality.
- God, McCain and his boss Rick Davis must HATE intellectual conservatives for calling them out like this.And I call Davis “McCain’s boss” because I assume McCain’s new label for THINKING conservatives - what does he call them, the “Country Club set”? - is a talking point from Davis. I could be wrong. - post by cburell
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But it’s unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn’t think aloud. She just . . . says things.
- Another great zinger of a writer offended by the Palin phenomenon. We should start a wiki somewhere. - post by cburell
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Her supporters accuse her critics of snobbery: Maybe she’s not a big “egghead” but she has brilliant instincts and inner toughness. But what instincts? “I’m Joe Six-Pack”? She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation—”palling around with terrorists.” If the Ayers case is a serious issue, treat it seriously. She is not as thoughtful or persuasive as Joe the Plumber, who in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made. In the past two weeks she has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn’t, really, understand.
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This is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn’t seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts.
- A really interesting bit of psychologizing. - post by cburell
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No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can’t be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush’s style the past few years, and see where it got us. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don’t, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.
- To read THIS in the Wall Street Journal, THE voice of American capitalism, is stunning. - post by cburell
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In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It’s no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.
- Bravo. You do Orwell proud for pointing it out. William F. Buckley would be proud too.Conservatives CAN be intellectual, though their numbers are either dwindling or self-censoring. - post by cburell
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I gather this week from conservative publications that those whose thoughts lead them to criticism in this area are to be shunned, and accused of the lowest motives. In one now-famous case, Christopher Buckley was shooed from the great magazine his father invented. In all this, the conservative intelligentsia are doing what they have done for five years. They bitterly attacked those who came to stand against the Bush administration. This was destructive. If they had stood for conservative principle and the full expression of views, instead of attempting to silence those who opposed mere party, their movement, and the party, would be in a better, and healthier, position.
At any rate, come and get me, copper.
- Again, bravo, my intelligent conservative friend.My question: where are the GOP candidates with the backbone or brains to represent THIS strain of conservatism? We didn’t see them in the GOP primary season. Romney, Huckabee, the whole gang seemed shallow. Ron Paul excluded. - post by cburell
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Much more below the fold.
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Republicans Rain Negative Automated Calls on Voters in Swing States - NYTimes.com
Nice to see journalists on this one fact-checking the robocall contents, and correcting them when wrong or mis-leading.
Sad that this is a thing to be excited about, when it’s supposed to be the role of journalism to identify lies as lies.
It’s interesting to see the expanding use of technology in politics. From TV to websites to twitter to spam robocalls to YouTube, on and on. (And notice this article links to an Obama site to defend against the distortions in the robocalls.)
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Voters in North Carolina have received calls accusing Mr. Obama of opposing legislation aimed at protecting aborted fetuses that show signs of life, a position the call states is “at odds even with John Kerry and Hillary Clinton.”
“Please vote,” the call continues, “vote for candidates that share our values.”
The 2003 measure in Illinois that Mr. Obama opposed was virtually identical to federal legislation that Mr. Bush signed into law in 2002 after it was overwhelmingly passed by Congress. But Mr. Obama and other opponents of the Illinois bill have said that the state already had a law protecting aborted fetuses born alive. The Illinois State Medical Society, which also opposed the legislation, said the bill would increase civil liability for doctors and interfere with their patient relationships.
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Obama, McCain campaign in conservative states - International Herald Tribune - Annotated
Interesting on many fronts. Historical changes and lessons to learn from this: a black man winning traditionally poor, white, uneducated votes in southern states.
The purse is color-blind, we learn?
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McCain was campaigning Friday in Florida and on Saturday was moving on to North Carolina and Virginia. He lost his lead in polls in all three states during the past month.
The Republican on Friday returned to what is likely to be his theme for the final days of the campaign, that Obama wants to “spread the wealth around” — part of a comment that Obama made to a voter who asked about his tax plan.
- So this is the campaign’s new angle? We’ll “focus on the economy” by attacking and caricaturing Obama’s?
Better than “paling around with terrorists,” but still…. - post by cburell
- So this is the campaign’s new angle? We’ll “focus on the economy” by attacking and caricaturing Obama’s?
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“When politicians talk about taking your money and spreading it around, you’d better hold onto your wallet,” McCain said at a rally in Miami.
- That’s what many of us voters were saying when McCain AND Obama bailed out the banks by “spreading around” about a trillion dollars. - post by cburell
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“Sen. Obama claims that he want to give a tax break to the middle class, but not only did he vote for higher taxes for the middle class in the Senate, his plan gives away your tax dollars to those who don’t pay taxes. That’s not a tax cut; that’s welfare,” McCain said.
Obama maintains he would cut taxes for 95 percent of earners while raising them for the richest Americans, those making more than $250,000 a year.
- Thank goodness this campaign is almost over. - post by cburell
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On the Democratic side, Obama was trying to stake out ground in traditionally Republican states, likely signaling that financial concerns are trumping any racial prejudices among white working-class voters. A recent AP-GfK poll showed that Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, has inched up among whites with no college education while McCain has lost significant ground.
- Wow. - post by cburell
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Four prominent newspapers, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times on Friday endorsed Obama.
- The Chicago Tribune is typically Republican. Granted, Obama is from Illinois, but still. - post by cburell
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Racists for Obama? - Ben Smith - Politico.com
Fascinating and hopeful.
I’ve seen my own hometown, Chattanooga, Tennessee, change from a place in which interracail (black-white) couples would never be seen in working-class bars in the 1980s, to a place where precisely that was what I saw in the ’90s, with nobody staring or blinking.
So hopeful.
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The notion that there might be “racists for Obama,” as one Democrat called them, comes against the backdrop of a country whose white voters largely accept the notion of a black president.
“The economy is trumping racism,” said Kurt Schmoke, the dean of Howard University Law School and a former Baltimore mayor. “A lot of people who we might think wouldn’t vote their pocketbook because of race — now they are.”
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Creating Critical Voters: A Too-Easy Diigo-Google Reader- Student Blog Assignment | Beyond School - Annotated
A screencast tutorial I made on how Diigo, Google News, and a Student Blog would be a kick-a*s way to encourage individualized student learning and critical thinking about current events and more.
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Jonathan Martin’s Blog: Davis sketches out econ-heavy final 18 days - Politico.com - Annotated
McCain’s campaign mgr tries to have his cake and eat it too, continuing negative campaigning while CLAIMING that the campaign is “about the economy.”
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Though the purpose of the call was to discuss potential voter fraud and the campaign and RNC continue to spend money on robo calls and mail on Obama’s ties to Bill Ayers, Davis said their focus in the next two weeks would primarily be on the economy.
- So which is more important, the smear or the positive message? - post by cburell
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Edublog Suspended: Politics Around the Web 10/13/2008 | Beyond School
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How We Lost the War We Won : (Afghanistan) Rolling Stone - Annotated
A fascinating and insightful piece of investigative journalism into the heartland of Taliban territory. Chilling at times, and troubling in what it shows about US prospects for “winning” the war.
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The Bush administration is placing its hopes on presidential
elections in Afghanistan next year, but everyone I speak with in
Kabul agrees that the elections will be a joke. “The Americans are
gung-ho about elections,” a longtime nongovernmental official tells
me. “But it will only exacerbate ethnic tensions.” In Pashtun areas
controlled by the Taliban, registration would be virtually
impossible, and voting would invoke a death sentence —
effectively disenfranchising the country’s dominant ethnic group.
“You can’t fix the insurgency with an election,” a senior U.N.
official tells me. “It’s a socioeconomic phenomenon that goes well
beyond the border of Afghanistan.” Real elections would require the
cooperation of the Taliban — and that, in turn, would require
negotiations with the Taliban. The war, in effect, is already
lost. -
Officials on the ground in Afghanistan say it is foolhardy to
believe that the Americans can prevail where the Russians failed.
At the height of the occupation, the Soviets had 120,000 of their
own troops in Afghanistan, buttressed by roughly 300,000 Afghan
troops. The Americans and their allies, by contrast, have 65,000
troops on the ground, backed up by only 137,000 Afghan security
forces — and they face a Taliban who enjoy the support of a
well-funded and highly organized network of Islamic extremists.
“The end for the Americans will be just like for the Russians,”
says a former commander who served in the Taliban government. “The
Americans will never succeed in containing the conflict. There will
be more bleeding. It’s coming to the same situation as it did for
the communist forces, who found themselves confined to the
provincial capitals.”- It’s worth remembering that the US supported Afghan and Islamic “freedom fighters” against the Soviet occupiers, and among those with US/CIA support was Osama Bin Laden. - post by cburell
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Simply put, it is too late for Bush’s “quiet surge” — or
even for Barack Obama’s plan for a more robust reinforcement
— to work in Afghanistan. More soldiers on the ground will
only lead to more contact with the enemy, and more air support for
troops will only lead to more civilian casualties that will
alienate even more Afghans. Sooner or later, the American
government will be forced to the negotiating table, just as the
Soviets were before them. -
“The rise of the Taliban insurgency is not likely to be
reversed,” says Abdulkader Sinno, a Middle East scholar and the
author of Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond. “It will
only get stronger. Many local leaders who are sitting on the fence
right now — or are even nominally allied with the government
— are likely to shift their support to the Taliban in the
coming years. What’s more, the direct U.S. military involvement in
Afghanistan is now likely to spill over into Pakistan. It may be
tempting to attack the safe havens of the Taliban and Al Qaeda
across the border, but that will only produce a worst-case scenario
for the United States. Attacks by the U.S. would attract the
support of hundreds of millions of Muslims in South Asia. It would
also break up Pakistan, leading to a civil war, the collapse of its
military and the possible unleashing of its nuclear arsenal.”- Anybody want to place bets on this scenario? - post by cburell
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In the same speech in which he promised a surge, Bush vowed that
he would never allow the Taliban to return to power in Afghanistan.
But they have already returned, and only negotiation with them can
bring any hope of stability. Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan “are
all theaters in the same overall struggle,” the president declared,
linking his administration’s three greatest foreign-policy
disasters in one broad vision. In the end, Bush said, we must have
“faith in the power of freedom.”But the Taliban have their own faith, and so far, they are
winning. On my last day in Kabul, a Western aid official reminds me
of the words of a high-ranking Taliban leader, who recently
explained why the United States will never prevail in
Afghanistan.“You Westerners have your watches,” the leader observed. “But we
Taliban have time.”
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Obama is the choice | ajc.com - Annotated
Atlanta urges Obama.
The unique point in this endorsement is the insight that McCain’s choice of (mostly) Bush’s _campaign managers_ and _tactics_ indicates a disturbing truth to the “McCain _is_ four more years of Bush” claim.
I also appreciate their argument that GOP staffers from the Bush admin will continue to inhabit the White House more if McCain is elected than if Obama is.
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Naturally, both Obama and his opponent, U.S. Sen. John McCain, have promised to take the country in a new direction. Both are honorable men fully qualified and competent to be president.
McCain, however, faces a hurdle in his claim to be an agent of change because he shares a political party with Bush. To offset that fact, McCain has wisely chosen to campaign on his reputation as a maverick, a reputation that he once fully deserved.
However, in his current role as Republican nominee, McCain has yet to explain how most of his proposed policies and approaches differ from those of the current president. From deregulation of Wall Street and tax cuts that favor the richest 5 percent of Americans to a more aggressive foreign policy, McCain’s approach now reflects the same Republican orthodoxy that has governed this country since 2000. Time and again, he has been offered chances to explain how his philosophy differs from that of the current president, and he has not been able to do so.
And it’s not just a matter of policies. A third term under another Republican president would inevitably be populated by much the same cast of GOP staffers, executives and bureaucrats that has run Washington for so long and with such disastrous results. McCain’s campaign staff illustrates that problem perfectly because it is populated by many of the same people who ran previous Bush campaigns. They are also still trying to run the same basic Republican playbook that the party has used since 1980.
- Exactly. To me, it’s the most overlooked angle of this election: the campaign management team is a CHOICE of the candidate - an EXECUTIVE choice. From Palin to suspending the campaign grandstanding to the back-fired Joe the Plumber embarrassment to the mud-slinging and race-baiting, this campaign team has done a disgraceful job. But the buck stops with the candidate for a) choosing it, b) following its tactics, and c) not condemning them. - post by cburell
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In fact, the competence of McCain’s campaign staff is itself cause to question the candidate’s executive abilities. To some degree, the rigors of creating and running a campaign organization can be a test of the skills needed to create and run an administration. And even many Republicans acknowledge that the McCain campaign has been poorly organized and erratic, lurching from one crisis to another without the sense of a strong hand at the tiller.
Columnist William Kristol, a longtime McCain backer, calls the McCain campaign “close to being out–and–out dysfunctional,” concluding that “its combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic.”
And of course, the most unfortunate evidence of that “strategic incoherence and operational incompetence” was McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, a person utterly unprepared for the high post in question.
- Exactly. - post by cburell
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The contrast with the campaign run by Barack Obama could not be more stark. More than a year ago, when he was still a long shot without much money, Obama somehow managed to attract a staff talented and disciplined enough to defeat Hillary Clinton and the Clinton machine in the Democratic primaries. It has since gone on to demonstrate a great deal of political discipline, skill and innovation, running a 21st century campaign that appeals to 21st century America.
- It’s a testimony to Obama’s executive abilities that his campaign team has been virtually invisible. Nobody talks about it, yet it has steadily and calmly piled victory on victory, against amazing odds, for two years now.
And edtech folks must notice the “21st century campaign” language with a little thrill…. - post by cburell
- It’s a testimony to Obama’s executive abilities that his campaign team has been virtually invisible. Nobody talks about it, yet it has steadily and calmly piled victory on victory, against amazing odds, for two years now.
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GOP ‘robo calls’ slam Obama in 10 swing states | National | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
McCain campaign hires the same firm that robo-slandered McCain in 2000?
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MIAMI — Voters in at least 10 swing states are receiving hundreds of thousands of automated telephone calls — uniformly negative and sometimes misleading — that the Republican Party and the McCain campaign are financing this week as they struggle to keep more states from drifting into the Democratic column.
Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, has belittled such phone calls in the past: In the 2000 primaries, he was a target of misleading calls that included innuendo about his family, and blamed them in part for his loss to George W. Bush.
This January, too, in South Carolina, McCain described the calls against him as “scurrilous stuff,” and his campaign set up a truth squad to debunk them.
On Friday, a Democratic officeholder in Minnesota said he received one type of these so-called “robo calls” — this one featuring a live person — and tracked it back to a company owned by a prominent Republican consultant, Jeff Larson.
According to news reports, Larson and his previous firm helped develop the phone calls in 2000 that targeted and were denounced by McCain.
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GOP Sen. Susan Collins decries anti-Obama robocalls - Los Angeles Times
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Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, facing a tough reelection fight, urged GOP presidential contender John McCain on Friday to stop making automated calls into her state linking Democratic nominee Barack Obama to a 1960s radical.
“These kind of tactics have no place in Maine politics,” said Collins’ spokesman, Kevin Kelley. “Sen. Collins urges the McCain campaign to stop these calls immediately.”
The so-called robocalls — which began Thursday, the day after the final presidential debate — refer to Obama’s ties to one-time Weather Underground leader William Ayers. They also are being made in other battleground states, including Nevada, Wisconsin and Virginia.
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Barack Obama for president - Los Angeles Times
Another well-written and -reasoned editorial from a major publication. The entire thing is worth a read.
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The Times without hesitation endorses Barack Obama for president.
Our nation has never before had a candidate like Obama, a man born in the 1960s, of black African and white heritage, raised and educated abroad as well as in the United States, and bringing with him a personal narrative that encompasses much of the American story but that, until now, has been reflected in little of its elected leadership. The excitement of Obama’s early campaign was amplified by that newness. But as the presidential race draws to its conclusion, it is Obama’s character and temperament that come to the fore. It is his steadiness. His maturity.
These are qualities American leadership has sorely lacked for close to a decade. The Constitution, more than two centuries old, now offers the world one of its more mature and certainly most stable governments, but our political culture is still struggling to shake off a brash and unseemly adolescence. In George W. Bush, the executive branch turned its back on an adult role in the nation and the world and retreated into self-absorbed unilateralism.
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John McCain distinguished himself through much of the Bush presidency by speaking out against reckless and self-defeating policies. He earned The Times’ respect, and our endorsement in the California Republican primary, for his denunciation of torture, his readiness to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and his willingness to buck his party on issues such as immigration reform. But the man known for his sense of honor and consistency has since announced that he wouldn’t vote for his own immigration bill, and he redefined “torture” in such a disingenuous way as to nearly embrace what he once abhorred.
Indeed, the presidential campaign has rendered McCain nearly unrecognizable. His selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate was, as a short-term political tactic, brilliant. It was also irresponsible, as Palin is the most unqualified vice presidential nominee of a major party in living memory. The decision calls into question just what kind of thinking — if that’s the appropriate word — would drive the White House in a McCain presidency. Fortunately, the public has shown more discernment, and the early enthusiasm for Palin has given way to national ridicule of her candidacy and McCain’s judgment.
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Obama’s selection also was telling. He might have scored a steeper bump in the polls by making a more dramatic choice than the capable and experienced Joe Biden. But for all the excitement of his own candidacy, Obama has offered more competence than drama.
He is no lone rider. He is a consensus-builder, a leader. As a constitutional scholar, he has articulated a respect for the rule of law and the limited power of the executive that make him the best hope of restoring balance and process to the Justice Department. He is a Democrat, leaning further left than right, and that should be reflected in his nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. This is a good thing; the court operates best when it is ideologically balanced. With its present alignment at seven justices named by Republicans and two by Democrats, it is due for a tug from the left.
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We are not sanguine about Obama’s economic policies. He speaks with populist sweep about taxing oil companies to give middle-class families rebates that of course they would welcome, but would be far too small to stimulate the economy. His ideas on taxation do not stray far from those put forward by Democrats over the last several decades. His response to the most recent, and drastic, fallout of the sub- prime mortgage meltdown has been appropriately cautious; this is uncharted territory, and Obama is not a master of economic theory or practice.
And that’s fine. Obama inspires confidence not so much in his grasp of Wall Street finance but in his acknowledgment of and comfort with his lack of expertise. He will not be one to forge far-reaching economic policy without sounding out the best thinkers and practitioners, and he has many at his disposal. He has won the backing of some on Wall Street not because he’s one of them but because they recognize his talent for extracting from a broad range of proposals a coherent and workable program.
On paper, McCain presents the type of economic program The Times has repeatedly backed: One that would ease the tax burden on business and other high earners most likely to invest in the economy and hire new workers. But he has been disturbingly unfocused in his response to the current financial situation, rushing to “suspend” his campaign and take action (although just what action never became clear). Having little to contribute, he instead chose to exploit the crisis.
We may one day look back on this presidential campaign in wonder. We may marvel that Obama’s critics called him an elitist, as if an Ivy League education were a source of embarrassment, and belittled his eloquence, as if a gift with words were suddenly a defect. In fact, Obama is educated and eloquent, sober and exciting, steady and mature. He represents the nation as it is, and as it aspires to be.
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Good summary of why Texas textbook decisions matter for the entire USA.
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More evidence the USA is falling further behind Bulgaria in science literacy.
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AUSTIN
- Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller today sharply criticized the inclusion of three strident evolution opponents, including two authors of an anti-evolution textbook, on a panel that will review proposed new science curriculum standards for
Texaspublic schools. The inclusion of the two textbook authors raises serious questions about conflicts of interest and whether political agendas took priority over giving
Texasstudents a 21st-century science education, Miller said.
“It’s simply stunning that any state board members would even consider appointing authors of an anti-evolution textbook to a panel of scientists,” she said. “Are they coming here to help write good science standards or to drum up a market for their lousy textbook?”
The textbook, Explore Evolution, is intended for secondary schools and colleges, according to its
U.S.distributor, the anti-evolution Discovery Institute in
Seattle. Because of that, the State Board of Education could consider it for the state’s approved list of science textbooks in 2011.
The two authors are Stephen Meyer, who is vice president of the Discovery Institute, and Ralph Seelke, a professor of the department of biology and earth sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. A third panel member, Charles Garner, is a professor of chemistry at
BaylorUniversityin
Waco.
All three are supporters of the anti-evolution concept “intelligent design”/creationism and have signed the Discovery Institute’s “Dissent from Darwinism” statement. In addition to their textbook, Meyer and Seelke testified in 2005 against evolution in hearings called by religious conservatives who controlled the Kansas State Board of Education.
Texasstate board members spanNCSE Resource — New Creationist Textbook On the Way (Again)
What sells in Texas textbooks normally sells in the rest of the USA.
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A document recently received by NCSE outlines the Discovery Institute’s upcoming plans for its so-called teach the controversy strategy. In 2007, the Discovery Institute plans to release a “supplemental textbook” entitled Explore Evolution. According to the document, the textbook and auxiliary materials will teach the students the Discovery Institute’s talking points against evolution. These talking points will evidently include the standard list of long-refuted creationist claims promoted by the Discovery Institute, including the inadequacy of the fossil record, biological complexity as a challenge to evolutionary theory, the inexplicability of the Cambrian Explosion, and other common creationist tropes. Students will be taught these talking points via the supplemental textbook and associated slide shows, study guides, and videos, and will be tested on the talking points in Discovery Institute-prepared “quiz questions”.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE ENDORSEMENT: Chicago Tribune endorses Barack Obama for president — chicagotribune.com - Annotated
More abandonment of the GOP from thinking (”elite”?) conservatives.
The Tribune is a conservative paper. Will Palin lump it in with the NYTimes? Is FOX the only media outfit with any credit from the GOP base?
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This endorsement makes some history for the Chicago Tribune. This is the first time the newspaper has endorsed the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.
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The Tribune’s decisions then were driven by outrage at inept and corrupt business and political leaders.
We see parallels today.
The Republican Party, the party of limited government, has lost its way. The government ran a $237 billion surplus in 2000, the year before Bush took office — and recorded a $455 billion deficit in 2008. The Republicans lost control of the U.S. House and Senate in 2006 because, as we said at the time, they gave the nation rampant spending and Capitol Hill corruption. They abandoned their principles. They paid the price.
We might have counted on John McCain to correct his party’s course. We like McCain. We endorsed him in the Republican primary in Illinois. In part because of his persuasion and resolve, the U.S. stands to win an unconditional victory in Iraq.
It is, though, hard to figure John McCain these days. He argued that President Bush’s tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, but he now suppo
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