Posted on February 28th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Kirsten Powers of PowersPoint may be an even harsher critic of Romney than I am, and she offers pithier attacks:
Attacking France, Massachusetts liberals and Hollywood is not a plan. It’s a regurgitation.
She has also laid into Giuliani’s bogus line on judges, picking up Politico’s new story on the judges Giuliani has already appointed. Surprise–they’re not all […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on February 28th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
There are all sorts of possible explanations for it. Taranto gives us two useful ideas to start with: One is that the religious leaders don’t actually exercise as much power as we’re constantly hearing. Another is that the religious right is actually far more thoughtful in their political picks than they’re often given credit for. […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on February 28th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Matt Corley at TPMCafe asks the obvious question over Romney’s latest weaseling rhetoric:
If Romney doesn’t think it’s a good idea to distinguish between people based on whether they have faith, then why should we do just that when picking a President?
The thing is that this is a no-brainer of an “issue.” Actual atheists and non-believers […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on February 28th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
On the GOP side, the misreader-in-chief is clearly Mitt Romney. Can someone remind me why we were taking him seriously? I guess some people still are — just as the Democrats have their heavyweight troika, consisting of Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, so the GOP has its version, which evidently includes Romney along with Giuliani and […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on February 28th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
While I understand the temptation among Republicans to please their base by French-baiting – though it probably had more resonance circa Freedom Fries in the spring of ‘03 — there is an enormous political downside for a presidential contender in tweaking Paris: New Hampshire, where next-door Romney will be expected to place well in the primary, has the highest […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on February 28th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Actually, it has been tried several times before, so there’s a track-record. ~Michael Rubin
Rubin means that there have been other occasions when Westerners have talked to representatives of leaders in the Near East and North Africa. There actually haven’t been attempts to negotiate directly with Iran and Syria on this subject, and there haven’t been […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on February 28th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
There are (at least) three things fundamentally wrong with Frank Gaffney’s article on negotiations with Iran and Syria. First, he assumes that merely entering into talks with Tehran “legitimates” the regime. Presumably, this has already occurred when the British, French, Germans and countless other respectable countries talk to them, trade with them and enter into […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on February 28th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Having concluded a deal with the North Koreans that seems to have, for the moment, handled the situation there, Washington now turns to two members of the Fearsome Foursome (or whatever we’re calling it these days) for talks. This has produced the predictable wailing and gnashing of teeth in all the right places, which suggests that […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on February 28th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Speaking more widely, it strikes me as thoroughly perverse that those who like to argue that “nothing” should be off the table when it comes to Iran and Syria find a little diplomatic conversation as something too ghastly to contemplate. ~Andrew Stuttaford
Well, talking could lead to all kinds of embarrassing moments in the press and fills […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on February 27th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
And so I think people’s faith in the United States is their, certainly, you know, what it is. Each person has the right to choose whatever faith they want and it’s a very important part of our country. ~Laura Bush
And they say that she’s the one with the firm grasp on the English language? Imagine […]
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Filed under: politics, religion
Posted on February 27th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
While his [Perlstein’s] specific examples remain off the mark — it is bizarre to assert without evidence that Romney launched his campaign at the Henry Ford Museum so he could be attacked by the liberal media — maybe there is something to the idea of winning over conservatives by railing against the right bogeymen. ~Jim […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on February 27th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Jonathan Chait has suggested that Obama make this his campaign song (warning: lame 1980s video after link). It’s not that bad of a suggestion as these things go, but a word of caution: several of the clips of dive-bombers appear to be from film of German Stuka attacks from WWII, which might send a slightly mixed message to Obama’s […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on February 27th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
I don’t like the implication that there is a flow of things and that it goes in the direction of increasing agglomeration. Why isn’t greater independence and individualism among bloggers a good thing? ~Ann Althouse
I wouldn’t dispute Prof. Althouse’s view that greater independence and individualism among bloggers are good things. As I have said before, there is something […]
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Filed under: miscellaneous
Posted on February 27th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
The plan, for instance, indicates that Romney will define himself in part by focusing on and highlighting enemies and adversaries, such common political targets as “jihadism,” the “Washington establishment,” and taxes, but also Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, “European-style socialism,” and, specifically, France. Even Massachusetts, where Romney has lived for almost 40 years, is listed […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on February 27th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Good CEOs don’t simply stake out public positions and stick to them for 20 years. They devise new business strategies and business plans to cope with changing market conditions. ~Daniel Gross
Mr. Gross offers an interesting take on the flip-flopper, arguing that Romney’s background in business explains his, er, flexibility with the issues. I think his business […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on February 27th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
So a friend of mine here at Chicago recently recommended that I see Fanaa, the 2006 Kajol-Aamir Khan vehicle that saw the stunning Bengali actress return to the screen as if no time had passed since her last appearance in 2001. Two days ago I did happen to watch it, and I was impressed. Once […]
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Filed under: miscellaneous, film, Bollywood
Posted on February 26th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Pelosi’s piece [Friends of God] is like a Bush supporter making a documentary on the anti-war movement by going to rallies and interviewing geriatric Trotskyites, dudes in dirty dreadlocks carrying signs equating Israel to the Third Reich and transgendered Scientologists. ~Don Feder
So it’s basically just like 95% of pro-war commentary for the last four and a […]
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Filed under: politics, Christianity
Posted on February 26th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Good grief. Note to John McCain’s campaign: if you’re looking to mend fences and try to become the choice of conservative Republican primary voters, it’s best not to go around trumpeting news of an endorsement by Senator John Warner of Virginia - especially after Warner just finished spearheading an effort in the Senate to rebuke […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on February 26th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Gage notes that three “small state” governors like Romney — Jimmy Carter of Georgia, Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts and Bill Clinton of Arkansas — were all lower in polling at a similar point in their races. In 1975, Carter was at a mere 1 percent in a Gallup survey. Dukakis matched that level of support […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on February 26th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
And he [Brownback] says the youngest voters, ages 18 to 25, are the most pro-life cohort. They were born, he says, when abortion rates were highest, so “many of them feel they’re the survivors of a holocaust: one in four of their compatriots are not here.’’ Actually, almost one in three: the abortion rate peaked in […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on February 26th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
The Romneyites and everybody else seem to be terribly annoyed with the Associated Press for running a story about Romney’s ancestors. When the same evil media run stories on Barack Obama that talk up the fact that he is the “son of a Kenyan goat-herder,” no one assumes that they are hit pieces or attempts to destroy him, […]
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Filed under: politics, religion
Posted on February 26th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Among other issues, Paul also voiced support for abandoning the war on drugs, allowing gold and silver to serve as legal tender, repealing the Seventeenth Amendment” which lets voters directly elect U.S. Senators” and ending the practice of withholding taxes from one’s pay. Instead, taxpayers would have to actually write checks to pay their taxes, […]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on February 26th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
What baffles me, though, is why Buchanan would ever write such a thing when his own American Conservative magazine has long accused anyone — as Buchanan did Friday — of questioning European resolve and Western European solidarity, as being neocon conspirators and Israeli apologists. ~Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson, yes, Victor Davis Hanson had something […]
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Filed under: politics, foreign policy
Posted on February 26th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
Apparently, they never even get that far:
The women of Tecalpulco, Mexico, want the U.S. government to enforce its immigration laws because they want to force their husbands to come back home from working illegally in the United States.
They have created an English-language Web page where they identify themselves as the “wetback wives” and broadcast their […]
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Filed under: politics, immigration
Posted on February 25th, 2007 by Daniel Larison
I must be doing something right. One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers has declared one of my recent posts, to which Sullivan linked, to be “conservative humbug.” Unfortunately, in his haste to declare my view humbug he seems to have read in that post a claim that I did not make and don’t actually believe. The Sullivan […]
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Filed under: politics, religion, culture, Christianity, Orthodoxy
