Posts by Gary Pearce
Tax That Fellow Under the Tree
With apologies to Keith Olberman of MSNBC, here are my nominations for the worse, worser and worsest people in Wake County. All of them for saying in The News & Observer that they don’t want to pay taxes for schools. Worse: Carridene Narron, 83, of Raleigh, a retired title examiner at the state Division of…
Read MoreRepublican Legislature in 08?
There is talk around the legislature that some veteran Democratic Senators will not run for reelection again – and that Marc Basnight may be serving his last term as President Pro Tem. Republicans certainly would welcome that. Some restive Democrats might even say good riddance. But the Democrats need to ponder their chances of keeping…
Read MoreHeroes
You think about heroes when you sit in the hot sun at a Memorial Day ceremony. The ceremony Monday was in Murfreesboro, a tiny town in Hertford County in northeastern North Carolina. I went with my mother and my two children, because my dad’s name is on a veterans’ memorial the town’s residents built this…
Read MoreEverybody Wins
The Iraq-money vote turned out to be a winner for everybody in Washington. George Bush and his diminishing band of supporters got their money without any real strings. Nervous congressional Democrats inoculated themselves against campaign charges that they voted against money for the troops. Hillary and Obama and Pelosi and Reid get to tell the…
Read MoreDemocrats Should Pump It Up
In honor of Memorial Day, congressional Democrats decided they were better off politically not to be seen as cutting off money for American troops in Iraq. That’s smart. It’s also smart to jump on another issue that resonates at Memorial Day: gas prices. A very smart North Carolina Democrat asked me this week, “Why haven’t…
Read MoreBicoastal GOP?
With the passing of Jerry Falwell and the rise of Rudy Giuliani, is the Republican Party moving to the center while the Democratic Party moves to the left? That’s my nightmare scenario. Because the party of the center usually wins: witness Republicans in the 70s and 80s and Democrats in the 90s. I’ve reassured myself…
Read MoreDid Democrats Cave In?
Speaker Pelosi and her leadership team sure looked beaten when they went before the press to explain – and defend – their deal with President Bush and the Republicans on Iraq. It’s easy to see why: they had surrendered on the fight for troop-withdrawal deadlines. Pelosi said she might vote against it herself. Congressmen Obey…
Read MoreA Nice Word for Russ Stephenson
Russ Stephenson, the at-large Raleigh city councilman, told my mother he hopes I’ll say something nice about him in my blog. So here goes. I’ve had some criticism of Russ. I think he – and too much of the current council – is too downtown-focused. As a Democrat, I’m concerned that Russ and some of…
Read MoreStep Up, Mr. Speaker
The stables badly need cleaning in the North Carolina House of Representatives. And Speaker Joe Hackney needs to step up to the job. So far, he hasn’t. It’s past time he did. In a way, the situation is unfair to Hackney. He spent decades building a reputation as a clean, hard-working legislator. He finally achieved…
Read MoreBush and Nixon
Two more reasons why George Bush reminds me of Richard Nixon more and more every day: His aides pressured an ailing and hospitalized Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004 to sign off on a domestic-eavesdropping plan that the Justice Department believed was illegal. (I never thought it was possible to make Ashcroft a hero, but…
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