National Republicans
The Shortest Honeymoon on Record
Last fall, after Obama got elected, Richard the Intellectual got so discouraged about politics he took to reading religious poetry – The Divine Comedy about cured him of that but, then, he switched to the Civil War and when he got to the Battle of Antietam the gloom thickened. The way Richard tells it the…
Read MoreClueless
George Bush’s exit interviews accomplish nothing more than to remind us how far in over his head he was as President. Many Americans voted for Bush in 2000 – I remind you that we did not elect him – because they thought he would be a better guy to have a beer with than Al…
Read MoreHappy News Year!
Christmas should always come on Thursday. Because that means New Year’s Day is a Thursday. Which puts off Back-to-Work day to January 5. You have to love the quiet week between the two holidays. But it has its disadvantages. Newspapers and TV news – with little of consequence to cover – deluge us with lists:…
Read MoreRepublicans and Ostriches
The smoke’s clearing from the election and the voter statistics tell a simple straightforward story: Four years ago African-Americans were 19% of the voters – this year they were 25%. Obama’s campaign said it was going to turn out 250,000 new African-American voters – and darn near did it. Thanks to Obama’s relentless ‘ground game’…
Read MoreFathers and Sons
For Christmas, I usually ask for books. And I get some unexpected pleasures. Unexpected this year was Jacob Weisberg’s The Bush Tragedy, which I started reading Christmas night and found captivating. I hadn’t read it before, because I had expected predictable Bush-bashing. But Weisberg – who makes the perceptive observation that journalistic insight often comes…
Read MoreBlue Christmas
A Blue Christmas is a Merry Christmas for Democrats. Not so much for Republicans who are sure the end of the world is nigh. So let me offer a note of hope and cheer. Yes, the news is bad. Retail sales are down. Home sales are down. Car sales are so down Toyota is losing…
Read MoreDriving Off the Cliff
George Bush may have screwed up everything else in eight years, but even he knew better than to drive America’s automobile industry into bankruptcy at Christmas. Not so with Tennessee Senator Bob Corker and some of his Republican colleagues in Congress. All I have to say to them is: Keep driving, boys. Because – if…
Read MoreRepublican Death Wish
Republicans today remind me of Democrats after Reagan won in 1980: Determined to become a permanent minority party. If I could be a mole and dupe the GOP into a sure-fire strategy for self-immolation, I would keep them doing what some Republicans seem determined to do anyway: Drive GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy. Ignore the…
Read MoreTeam of Rivals
Presidents fight two wars. One to get elected. And one that starts the morning after the election. Only they may not know about the second war. Naturally, Barack Obama may think his authority (in the legal sense) as president gives him power to run his own government. But authority is a long way from control.…
Read MoreAfter the Fall
To most people – like Bill Clinton losing his party’s control of Congress in 1994 – one election is usually enough of a wake-up message. But Republicans are hard-headed – if madness is repeating the same mistake over and over with the same result we qualify. We shrugged off 2006, so history repeated itself in…
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