With North Korea building missiles and Iran building nuclear bombs it looks like the time has come for us to build the Strategic Missile Defense. After all, if Korea or Iran are dead set on building nuclear weapons, there doesn’t seem to be a way to stop them – short of launching a pre-emptive nuclear…
Read MoreNow all the Big Shots have an exit strategy – politically speaking, of course. Bush: He apparently will link the surge – or escalation, if you prefer – with deadlines for the Iraqis to take over. If his plan doesn’t work, he blames them. John McCain: He’s always called for more troops. If it doesn’t…
Read MorePresident Bush goes on TV tonight to discuss Iraq. The Democrats in Congress, who oppose President Bushâs âsurgeâ just got some help form unexpected quarters: Iraqâs Prime Minister, Nouri al Maliki. Malikiâs spokesman told the press that when âPresident Bush told the prime minister he was ready to send additional troopsâ instead of saying, âYes.…
Read MoreI must admit the primordial male in me is having a little trouble coping with all the gushing over ‘the first female Speaker of the House.’ It seems to me we are having another pop-culture moment – a media feeding frenzy not as intense as like Tom Cruise’s wedding or Angelina Jolie’s baby – but…
Read MoreHere are two stories from the newspaper about how government works – or doesn’t work. Trees It took three years for Raleigh to approve Mayor Meeker’s tree ordinance. Two more years have passed since then, and, now, the city is getting ready to take another look at the thirty-three section ordinance. So, with the new…
Read MoreAmerican politics oscillates between centrism and polarization. Two straws in the wind suggest that centrism is coming back: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gerald Ford. A hobbling (physically, anyway) Schwarzenegger said at his inauguration last week that centrist “does not mean watered down or warmed over, it means well-balanced and well-grounded.” In 2005, he said: “Like Paul…
Read MoreWhen Mayor Meeker announced he was running for reelection he told the press he considered running for Senate but decided against it. “In a fast growing city like Raleigh,” he said, “there’s more for a mayor to do than a junior member of Congress.” News and Observer columnist, Dennis Rogers, had the last word. “Of…
Read MoreLt. Governor Beverly Perdue just rolled out an ‘old chestnut’ as she launches her campaign for Governor. She says she wants to appoint a new government ‘efficiency commission’. It’s hard to say whether the Lt. Governor is an eternal optimist of a hard-bitten cynic. The last three governors all had ‘efficiency commissions’ of their own,…
Read MorePresident Bush’s much heralded ‘surge’ in Iraq has withered down to a ‘bump.’ Instead of sending forty-thousand more soldiers to Baghdad, according to the State Department we’re planning to send fifteen or twenty-thousand. Three or four combat brigades. Why not three or four divisions? If sending more soldiers to Iraq is valid logic, why not…
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