Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Blood and Tears
President Obama soared. Sarah Palin bombed. And, of course, John Boehner almost broke down. Let’s examine all three performances – and the implications. When even Fox News and Glenn Beck praise him, you know Obama hit a home run. But the most remarkable thing about a remarkable speech was that he had to…
Power Center
Forget the politicians in Raleigh. The most powerful person in North Carolina is Bill Johnson. Under the Duke-Progress merger, Johnson will be CEO of the new company – one of the biggest utilities in the nation and a corporation on the scale of ExxonMobil. He will be a powerful force not just in…
Listening to NPR
The last two mornings listening to National Public Radio while driving to work has been like being assailed; folks are calling-in mad as hornets and every media pundit is thoroughly morally outraged and they’re all blasting away at the Tea Party, saying overheated political rhetoric caused the shootings in Arizona and Sarah Palin all but…
A Voice of Sanity
Well, I predicted it Monday (“Commence Firing”). And while overheated political rhetoric may not necessarily lead to violence, violence certainly leads to overheated political rhetoric. Sarah Palin says it’s a “blood libel” to criticize her for placing Democrats — including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords — under crosshairs during the 2010 election and talking about…
The Reckoning
Unlike some Democrats, I’m not in despair about the Republican Party’s new power. It’s not just that I’m glad the GOP will share some – or bear all – of the blame for unpopular cuts. Rather, it’s time we finally decide how much government we want – and how much we’re willing to…
Commence Firing
It’s predictable that some Democrats will implicate Sarah Palin and the Tea Party in the Arizona shootings. It’s predictable that Republicans will accuse those Democrats of seeking to exploit a tragedy perpetrated by a nut. The unfortunate truth is that in the history of our politics, as Rap Brown once said, violence is…
Unintended Consequences
To cut spending Republican leaders in the General Assembly, the News and Observer reported the other day, are considering allowing Governor Perdue’s Cabinet Secretaries to decide what to cut in their departments. In other words the legislature will decide that, say, the Department of Transportation budget must cut $200 million to balance the budget,…
Not Everybody Loved Marc
A veteran of the legislature’s hallways and byways took exception to my sympathetic and OBX-centric view of Marc Basnight. Even the Charlotte Observer gushed, “It’s a testament to his place in N.C. politics that even his political adversaries spoke glowingly of him.” Here’s the legislative vet’s dissenting view: “Leaders from other areas of the…