A couple of days ago, I pointed out the tendency some pollsters have noted - namely, that those (particularly middle-class) voters who say they are “independent” may in fact have more predictably partisan voting behavior than party-identified voters. What to make, then, of the DLC’s assertion today that “just 22 percent of white men identified […]
Joan Venocchi had a piece a couple of weeks back saying as much, but it’s amazing how the travails of the local Democratic Party are those of the national party writ small. In case we were to dismiss the centrists’ claims that the Democratic Party has been hijacked by special interest groups (always a loaded […]
So far I find myself disagreeing more and more with Howard Dean’s policy stances - like his states rights fetish for gun control and gay marriage, or his trade protectionism - but in general I find myself drawn to him as a candidate. Johnathan Cohn of the New Republic sums up my feelings exactly:
… Which […]
Maybe it’s just the people I know, but Jonathan Chait, arguing against Dean’s campaign, offers one of the smartest, most concise insights I’ve read in a while:
I once heard a Democratic pollster talk about how educated voters like to think of themselves as independents because they think it’s wrong to identify with a party–that doing […]
A couple of nights ago, the PBS News Hour had a roundtable discussion of the historical parallels of American occupation after a war victory. Michael Beschloss, once again provided his trademark search for overlooked historical minutiae (here the prospect that Hitler had survived in the Bavarian hills) instead of offering broader-picture analysis of historical movement […]
This has been a fast-changing news cycle over the last week or so (and MFK has been behind a bit catching up…), but it’s amazing how the further and faster we go, the more we’re still in the same place. First, the Iraq war of course: the administration’s new uranium-intelligence scandal is bringing up debates […]
The Phoenix has noted before a major inconsistency in Mayor Menino’s economic development vision for the city: he touts that the new Convention Center will boost convention travel and tourism manyfold, yet opposes runway expansion at Logan Airport as unnecessary. Clearly, on each end he is caving into interests - East Boston neighborhood forces and […]
Yesterday I joined in the New Republic’s criticism of the extent to which the left’s anti-imperialism has blinded it to a more accurate analysis of the problems facing the developing world. But there is one realm in which the analysis of the U.S. as neo-imperalist power holds the most explanatory power: Latin America. As if […]
The New Republic has a sharp polemic against the left for ignoring Africa.
As the preeminent umbrella organization of the hard left, ANSWER directs its outrage across the globe. This September, for instance, it plans “International Days of Protest against Occupation and Empire, from Palestine to Iraq to the Philippines to Cuba and Everywhere.”
But, as […]
As far as I can tell, the Herald broke the story first, but today both papers are covering the latest big local government scandal: the disproportionate number of sick days taken by Boston firemen. It’s quite possible that the unions and fireman genuinely thought that the sick days were offered in contract negotiations as extra […]
Liberals and progressives alike tend to dwell on how stingy U.S. development aid to the third world - particularly Africa - has become. And they are right - for a nation as wealthy and militarily strong as ours, we can and should do more. Particularly when you factor out foreign policy bribes to Third World […]
If it’s seemed that the last week has been a turning point in the Howard Dean campaign, the change in media coverage is now official: even the hawkish New Republic has a piece by Daniel Drezner defending Dean’s foreign policy positions as no more lightweight than any of the other candidates…
Dean substantively distinguishes himself from […]
From the Globe, more on the MFA’s recent Degas acquisition…
THANKS BUT NO THANKS That’s the answer WGBH-TV’s ‘’Greater Boston’’ got this week when it invited the folks at the Museum of Fine Arts to talk about their pricey new acquisition, Degas’s ‘’Duchessa di Montejasi With Her Daughters, Elena and Camilla.’’ The show’s producers figured George […]
Roger Rosenblatt, on last night’s News Hour, used A Mighty Wind to reflect on the need for political optimisim. But rather than prove his larger point (in short, “What’s so funny about peace love and understanding?”), his essay just convinced me that film interpretation must be a rorschach test:
There is some funny stuff in the […]
The Herald reports (from a press release no doubt) that the Sierra Club is planning to launch a three-month campaign to bring about a North-South Station rail link. (See the Club’s site). An uninterrupted train ride through the city would be nice, but from an environmental point of view, I can’t think of anything more […]