The Real Sporer finds himself on the road, more Bulldog feeding, but the political world is never far from mind. My sources have reported that John Edwards, international Breck model and some time Presidential candidate, will ride in RAGBRAI.
Normally the Edwards campaign avoids out of door activities because of a fear that George W. will use his super hurricane powers to whip up a hairstyle devastating zephyr. Bicycling is even more dangerous to the Edwards image because, even under the most placid of wind conditions, the odd shape and tight fit of the bicycle safety helmet, and Edwards’ commitment to personal safety is legendary, can create a bad hair day in less than forty-five seconds of wear.
Edwards will ride without fear of a catastrophic hair tussle because Breck has created a new mousse` that holds in Katrina force winds and is impervious to even the tightest helmet that Rydell manufactures. Although the formula is secret sources say that Edwards’ conducted a test run during Monday night’s debate and the product performed magnificently.
We have also learned that Edwards will use the RAGBRAI to announce his latest campaign theme, he will unify America with a promise, not of two chickens in every pot, but with a blow dryer in every bathroom and curling and straightening iron on every night stand. No longer will Americans be forced to suffer from Alfalfa and Buckwheat follicle depravation. Magnificent coiffeture will be placed within the reach of every American child from cradle to grave.
While my hair care is provided by Bic and not Breck I am thankful that a man among exists among us with courage to liberate the rest of us from follicle poverty.
Normally the Edwards campaign avoids out of door activities because of a fear that George W. will use his super hurricane powers to whip up a hairstyle devastating zephyr. Bicycling is even more dangerous to the Edwards image because, even under the most placid of wind conditions, the odd shape and tight fit of the bicycle safety helmet, and Edwards’ commitment to personal safety is legendary, can create a bad hair day in less than forty-five seconds of wear.
Edwards will ride without fear of a catastrophic hair tussle because Breck has created a new mousse` that holds in Katrina force winds and is impervious to even the tightest helmet that Rydell manufactures. Although the formula is secret sources say that Edwards’ conducted a test run during Monday night’s debate and the product performed magnificently.
We have also learned that Edwards will use the RAGBRAI to announce his latest campaign theme, he will unify America with a promise, not of two chickens in every pot, but with a blow dryer in every bathroom and curling and straightening iron on every night stand. No longer will Americans be forced to suffer from Alfalfa and Buckwheat follicle depravation. Magnificent coiffeture will be placed within the reach of every American child from cradle to grave.
While my hair care is provided by Bic and not Breck I am thankful that a man among exists among us with courage to liberate the rest of us from follicle poverty.
66 comments:
Liberalism Dangerously Defined
By Michael Medved
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Ted Sorensen’s service to John F. Kennedy (as both US Senator and President) earned him legendary status as the most celebrated speechwriter in US history. Sorensen crafted the famous “Ask not…” phrase in the inaugural address, and wrote JFK’s stirring “New Frontier” acceptance speech when he won the Democratic nomination in 1960.
Last week, Sorensen (now 79) wrote another speech intended to inspire the Democratic hordes who scent victory in another watershed election. He wrote a proposed “Acceptance Speech” which he means to offer to whichever candidate prevails in the nomination fight.
At this point, however, Sorensen delivers a definition of unabashed liberalism, which, if echoed by the actual Democratic nominee, could guarantee victory for the GOP:
“Nor will I shrink from calling myself a liberal in the same sense that Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, John and Robert Kennedy, and Harry Truman were liberals – liberals who proved that government is not a necessary evil, bur rather the best means of creating a healthier, more educated, more prosperous America.”
Conservatives should rejoice at the prospect of fighting out an election campaign on precisely this question:
is government indeed the “best means of creating” a better America—or is it an intrusive, annoying, arbitrary, largely destructive force that consumes too much of out time, energy and money.
I remain confident that the majority of our fellow citizens will warm much more readily to the Ronald Reagan formulation that “government isn’t the solution; government is the problem,”
or the Jeffersonian declaration that “the government that governs best, governs least.”
Even Tom Paine, the Revolutionary pamphleteer generally beloved by the secular left, declared:
“While human society general counts as a blessing to the individual, government at the very best amounts to a necessary evil.” In other words, Tom Paine directly contradicts the Sorensen approach.
Mitt Romney has recently lashed out at Hillary Clinton for suggesting the replacement of an “on your own society” with a “working together society.”
As the former Massachusetts aptly observes, even welfare-state societies in Europe have begun rejecting that approach.
He suggests that Hillary's “working together,” “shared responsibility” mantra means that “she wouldn’t be elected President of France today, never mind the United States.”
Even Americans near the bottom of the economic ladder feel instinctive (and appropriate) revulsion to the liberal message that “you can’t make it on your hope” and that government provides your only hope.
Optimism about personal advancement represents a core American trait that cuts across all racial, educational and ideological lines.
If the Democrats follow Ted Sorensen’s advice, and Hillary Clinton’s recent rhetoric, their victory in 2008 hardly amounts to a foregone conclusdion.
Think how much energy Edwards would save if he just shaved the head and stopped using sprays and hairdryers that ruin the enviroment.
How do you offset the carbon footprint of all those hair products?
I read the story related to his "ride" with Lance Armstrong at the Register. Believe me, RAGBRAI riders supremely dislike the idea of politicians riding for publicity.
At one point, one of the other riders suggested some salve for his tender hind end...which if he had taken my advice, he could have finally rid himself of that $400 dollar haircut image.
Brownback was going to ride with Armstrong but five minutes later, he decided against it.
He wouldn't have had anyone to ride with since his supporters were too busy bombing abortion clinics.
NBC News caught up with Barack Obama for an on-camera interview about his spat with Hillary Clinton. NBC's Mitchell: "He's taken their fight to a new level."
Obama: "What is irresponsible and naive is to have authorized a war without asking how we were going to get out -- and you know I think Senator Clinton hasn't fully answered that issue."
More Mitchell: "Clearly stunned, Obama is now taking her on."
Obama: "If we are laying out preconditions that prevents us from speaking frankly to these folks, then we are continuing with Bush-Cheney policies, and I am not interested in continuing that" ("Nightly News," 7/25).
NBC has put a transcript of the entire interview on "First Read."
now, it's getting interesting. We actually have a real difference between the d's top tier candidates (Edwards is second tier).
I wonder how the voters will line up. Will they line up with billary/bush or go with obama on this subject.
I guess the d's can't scream at bush for not engaging with syria, iran, cuba, venezuela and north korea anymore. that little temper trantrum is over since no one ever goes against hillary. people that go against the clintons end up dead, in jail or being audited by the IRS.
i wonder how the d blogs will react to this split. I think i'll wander over to essentially estrogen and bleeding heartland to see how they weigh in on the subject.
the register has become real touchy about referencing their articles, so I need to be careful here, but....
I hope you are all finding out about the latest fiscal irresponsiblity laid on the taxpayer by the Vilsack Administration and continuing with the Culver Administration.
We pay CEO/Managers of Depts way over $100,000 in salary to manage depts. Apparently, you don't need to know anything about management in order to manage under Democrat administrations. You don't need to know about budgeting or performance.
What are the job requirements to take a position such as Mollie Anderson has. What background is required to earn that kind of money and then turn everything over to a consultant.
Are they all GED graduates like Ramona Cunningham who "managed"
CIETC?
Dave V also did an audit of the 1 cent add on sales tax we got forced into paying for the "schools". Well, it wasn't all that great a report, although it appears not a really awful report either.
The DHS is also having issues. (now, that's a big shock).
Is there any government entity that is responsible with tax money?
If there is, please advise.
Newt Gingrich appeared on "Hannity & Colmes" last night:
On his "pygmies" comment: "The point I made was trying to make even though Mayor Giuliani, Governor Romney, Senator Fred Thompson are terrific people, the process by which we are currently trying to pick a president inevitably reduces them in stature and inevitably, I think, limits their ability to have a serious dialogue."
neither party seems to be electing leaders. they seem to be electing their least offensive administrator of the status quo.
On Obama saying he would meet with world leaders, Newt said: "I think Senator Obama is an authentic voice of the left.
I think meeting with Fidel Castro makes perfect sense if you come from the American left because the American left:
...fears the U.S. military.
...They fear the CIA.
...They fear the American government.
...They never fear our enemies.
It would make perfect sense for him to openly announce he will visit with virtually any dictator in the planet who would be willing to have him" (FNC, 7/25). [EMILY GOODIN]
i just wandered over to bleeding heartland where desmoinesdem and chris woods from political forecast reside to check out the lastest perspective from the Iowa left on these important political issues of the day.
Their headline story still up from July 23rd is an analysis of political bumper stickers.
I grinned at this reinforcement of the stereotype first created by John Edwards that d's research on political issues boils down to "bumper stickers".
No wonder they use so many bumper stickers to insult the driver next to them. I was always curious as to their disproportionate use of bumper stickers. Now, I know.
Those bumper stickers represent their entire contribution to the discourse.
July 26, 2007
Intellectual Honesty & the Price of Tangerines
Posted by TOM BEVAN
Gail Collins appears less than impressed with John Edwards' intellectual honesty:
John Edwards has a plan to cap carbon emissions, while allowing businesses to buy the right to go over their quotas. Many people regard this as the most efficient and politically salable way to reduce greenhouse gases.
But they usually acknowledge that it would make some products - like small orange fruits that have to be transported a long way to get to market - more expensive.
"I live in North Carolina; I'll probably never eat a tangerine again," Elizabeth said.
To be utterly honest, the first reaction to this on the part of many listeners was that the Edwards family could afford to continue eating tangerines even if they became more costly than a two-family house in Des Moines. But we digress.
Was Mr. Edwards prepared to admit that the public might have to give up tangerines in order to keep the polar bears from drowning in the Arctic?
"I'd have to think about it," he said during a press conference later that day.
This was actually his second answer, the first being a short, utterly unrelated disquisition on food safety inspections.
The Edwards campaign has devoted immense effort to beating back the image of their candidate as The Man With the Expensive Haircut.
They don't want to make August the month for The Man Who Would Take Away America's Citrus Fruit.
Edwards eventually told Collins that his plan to curb global warming would have a "cost impact. No question about it," but then his press shop ruined the "candid" moment by calling back to clarify:
Yesterday morning, a spokesman for the Edwards campaign called to clarify his position.
The global warming program would not require families to pay more for everyday products, he said. "We are optimistic we will not have to raise the price of tangerines."
Leaving no good attack line behind, McCain and Mitt Romney pounced on the Obama's diplomacy kerfuffle.
McCain said Obama showed "naivete" in advocating direct talks with a host of dictators and mocked Obama's claim that his foreign policy judgment is superior to others' because of his time overseas and multicultural upbringing.
"Well, I also think I'm the most qualified to run the decathlon because I watch sports on television all the time," McCain said.
Romney said Obama gave an "extraordinarily naive and ill-considered promise."
Bill Richardson said he's met with Saddam Hussein, North Korean officials, and would be open to meeting with others so long as there are "hard-nosed negotiations."
Nussle was introduced to the committee flanked by Iowa's two senators, Democrat Tom Harkin and Republican Charles Grassley.
Lavish praise for Nussle came from Harkin, who called him "superbly qualified" to take on the job as a "genuine expert on the budget and a master of the budgeting process."
He said Nussle is "a straight shooter whose word is his bond and who can be counted on to follow through with the commitments he makes." As chairman of the Budget Committee, he reached out to Democrats, Harkin said.
Nussle, he continued, is accessible, an "excellent communicator" and a "formidable advocate for the causes he believes in," as well as a supporter of agriculture and renewable energy.
* Raise the top tax rate on long-term capital gains to 28 percent, which Edwards says would force wealthier Americans to pay taxes at rates closer to what middle-class families pay on their salaries.
* Repeal President Bush’s tax cuts on families making more than $200,000. Edwards has said he would use the proceeds to pay for a universal health-care plan.
Edwwards clearly didn't learn anything about how the economy works whilst earning that $500,000 salary at the Hedge Fund he represented.
Isn't that the reason he stated for working at an investment company that caters to people who make WAY WAY more than $200,000?
Historic and factual truth is that tax cuts create more tax income to the government than tax increases. The economy has roared each time we cut taxes and has gone into recession each time we increase taxes.
This risky scheme by edwards will create a recession, just like Bill created with his tax increases, and just like Bush 41 created with his tax increase.
* Encourage savings by offering $500 tax credits to low-income and moderate-income families who put money in accounts for retirement, college, home down payments or small businesses. The credits would effectively double their savings up to $500 per year.
* Add a $500 “work bond” for poor families, which would match additional savings they set aside.
* Give tax exemptions to the first $250 in investment income, to encourage saving and to simplify tax filing for families with small amounts of interest or investment income.
* Expand the child-care tax credit and allow stay-at-home parents to use it to offset their costs.
* Expand the earned-income tax credit to ease the burden on low-income people without children.
"Raise the top tax rate on long-term capital gains to 28 percent"
This is so stupid. So, the meager savings that poor people will possibly be able to muster will be taxed at 28% rather than 15%.
Where will the poor house their new found savings? Banks? CD's? Money market funds? Mutual Funds? Stocks?
Will he then tax those good decisions by taking away the investment earnings?
Why bother saving then?
His policies are oxymoronic and display a large deficit in his knowledge about how the economy works, even for poor people.
The truth is that Edwards knows that poor people will be unlikely to save and achieve these tax credits, thus they won't be paid out.
If poor people cannot save now...what changes when Edwards takes over?
They have to save FIRST to get the credits, which come way after the fact at tax return filing time.
They won't because they can't.
Their property taxes went up, their Social Security income is taxed (outrageous), their sales taxes keep increasing, taxes on beer and cigarettes keep increasing. User fees(a tax by another name) keep increasing their basic utility costs. Their day care bills keep going up and no, John, poor people really can't stay home and raise their kids which is very sad.
This is smoke and mirrors designed to get the tax increases without having to pay out the tax incentives.
Hey Lizzie - tell John this.
If you really care about poor people, how about reducing all those taxes on gasoline so they can afford to drive to work each day?
Poor people don't benefit by TAXING BIG OIL!
If you really care about poor people, how about keeping drug costs low by not taxing drug companies who, because of a profit incentive, create life-saving drugs like those they've come up with to keep people with AIDS alive?
Poor people do not benefit by taxing BIG DRUG COMPANIES!
If you really care about poor people, how about stopping this hatefilled campaign to destroy Wal-Mart?
Poor people benefit the most from the low prices at walmart. They also benefit from the $4.00 drugs they can buy at walmart.
Poor people's lives have improved because of Walmart.
The only people that hate Walmart are Unions. Last I saw, Unionworkers were not poor. Isn't that their big selling point? Be a unionworker and be RICH! Or, at least richer than the poor people that John purports to represent.
Add a $500 “work bond” for poor families, which would match additional savings they set aside.
Encourage savings by offering $500 tax credits to low-income and moderate-income families who put money in accounts for retirement, college, home down payments or small businesses.
The credits would effectively double their savings up to $500 per year.
Give tax exemptions to the first $250 in investment income, to encourage saving and to simplify tax filing for families with small amounts of interest or investment income.
If I do a great job of saving so that I can get that first $250 for free (boy, that will make a big difference in my socioeconomic status) then, you plan to take it away with your increase in the savings tax (capital gains).
I just never win. The cycle of poverty continues.
Ya know. I wonder how the Edwards kids have been spending their summer vacation.
Dad's gone every day. My dying mother is gone every day. She won't be around long, but...it's probably more important to the world that she run for president rather than spend time nurturing and loving us before she dies.
Regarding Mrs. Edwards. Don't worry about the kids, she's writing a book to tell them what she wants to tell them before she dies. They can read it after she dies.
They can sell the book as a fundraiser for John's next election.
They like to trade on their personal tragedy. It fits.
let me guess: D Iowa legislator and New Mom for the 5th time (all kids under 10 years) Staci Appel is a big fan of EE. They both have the same approach to parenting.
Absence.
After "Yes to Destiny," a 1 percent local option sales tax proposal, was voted down in the polls, supporters asked the organizers of a grassroots campaign against the tax if they had any ideas for generating the millions of dollars the proposal would have brought to the tri-county region.
The organizers' solution? Sell Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino.
The organization against the tax has a new mission, slogan and Web site, www.polkcountyjackpot.com.
They want to convince voters and elected officials that Prairie Meadows should be sold to a private casino operator, which they say would generate up to $600 million.
They also believe the county could generate $100 million every two years by requiring the new owner to give back a percentage of the casino's profits.
According to the group, the money would make up the revenue that Project Destiny supporters hoped to generate.
Prairie Meadows said in a statement that it has given more than $360 million to the community since 1995 and plans to continue to partner with Polk County and Central Iowa.
Organizers of the grassroots campaign said they hope to make this a ballot issue so voters can decide if the county should sell the casino.
From Ann Coulter - truth teller
Last year, a black writer in the Times pointed out how things had changed in New York in the 10 years since he had been out of the country.
Not only did he have no trouble getting a cab, but he cited statistics from taxi sting operations that showed a 96 percent compliance rate among cabbies in picking up blacks.
As the Times writer noted, even 10 years ago, "most of the drivers who refused to pick me up or take me to my destination during that time were of African descent."
When he asked one cabbie — 10 years ago — why he avoided picking up black customers, the driver displayed a scar across his neck, a souvenir from a black customer who had robbed him. "I have to choose which is worse," the driver said, "a fine or death."
Thanks to Rudy Giuliani, cab drivers in New York no longer have to make that choice.
Under his mayoralty, New York City became a lot safer for cab drivers — and everyone else.
The murder rate went from about 2,000 murders a year under Black Democrat Mayor David Dinkins to about 700 by the end of Giuliani's term. The last time a cab driver was killed in New York was in 1997.
In addition to making it safer for (mostly African-American and Muslim) cabbies to pick up African-Americans, Giuliani made it costly for them not to.
He started "Operation Refusal" in 1999, sending out teams of black undercover cops and taxi commissioners to hail cabs and give fines to those who refused to pick up blacks.
Even back in 1999, in the first 12 hours of "Operation Refusal," out of more than 800 cabs hailed, only five cab drivers refused to pick up a customer — one of whom was a white woman with children.
Ann on the YouRube debate:
Hillary raised the Bush-stole-the-2000-election fairy tale, saying: "I think it is a problem that Bush was elected in 2000. I actually thought somebody else was elected in that election, but ..." (Applause.)
On Nov. 12, 2001, The New York Times ran a front page article that began:
"A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward."
Another Times article that day by Richard L. Berke said that the "comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots solidifies George W. Bush's legal claim on the White House because it concludes that he would have won under the ground rules prescribed by the Democrats."
On Nov. 18, 2001, notorious pro-abortion zealot Linda Greenhouse wrote in the Times that the media consortium's count of all the disputed Florida ballots — in which the Times participated — concluded "that George W. Bush would have won the 2000 presidential election even had the court not cut the final recount short."
If three prominent articles in the Treason Times isn't enough to convince Hillary that Bush won the 2000 election, forget the White House: ABC ought to hire her to replace Rosie O'Donnell on "The View."
I know that's a big seat to fill, but maybe she can finally convince Elizabeth Hasselbeck that 9/11 was an inside job.
COPYRIGHT 2007 ANN COULTER
so, the upshot of all this is that BOTH Hillary and Barack lied during the BoobTube debate.
Barack Obama just completed a conference call with reporters --
Mike McAuliffe with the New York Daily News noticed how Obama had compared Hillary Clinton's debate answer about diplomacy to the Bush-Cheney approach. Does he really believe that?
Obama: “I don’t just believe it, I think that’s the record. The Bush administration’s policy is to say that we will not talk to these countries unless we meet explicit preconditions.
And that is the question that was asked at the debate.” He continued: “You’ll have to ask Sen. Clinton: what differentiates her position from theirs?”
Obama elaborated. “If I sit down with a leader of Iran I will send them a strong message that Israel is our friend and that we will assist in their security and that we don’t find nuclear weapons acceptable… that’s not going to be a propaganda coup for Iran, but what it does do is allow us to send a message to the rest of the world that we are willing to sit down and talk.
[What she said] during the debate and subsequently was that she would not meet with various leaders unless certain preconditions were met.
"Direct negotiations with countries like Iran and Syria are not a sign of weakness, they are a sign of ledership...The Bush Administration's refusal to talk to anyone on the evil side as some have called that idealistic, but I call it dangerously unrealistic."
Hillary Clinton, October 31, 2006, Council of Foreign Relations in NYC
Steve Chapman
July 26, 2007
During the Democratic debate in South Carolina, I heard something I never expected to hear: Hillary Rodham Clinton coming out against U.S. military intervention.
At least I think she was coming out against U.S. military intervention.
Asked whether U.S. troops should be sent to Darfur, the New York senator made a valiant effort to dodge the question by declaiming about sanctions, divestment and UN peacekeepers.
But when pressed, "How about American troops on the ground?" she finally said, a bit awkwardly, "American ground troops I don't think belong in Darfur at this time."
Clinton favored intervention in Haiti in 1994. (CLINTON WAR #1)
She favored intervention in Bosnia in 1995. (CLINTON WAR #2)
She favored intervention in Kosovo in 1999. (CLINTON WAR #3)
As first lady, Clinton said, "I am very pleased that this president and administration have made democracy one of the centerpieces of our foreign policy."
Before the Kosovo war, she phoned Bill from Africa and, she recalled later, "I urged him to bomb."
Among her critics, Clinton is known for a mother-knows-best domestic policy that relies on overbearing interference from Washington to remake the landscape to her specifications.
The flip side is a mother-knows-best foreign policy that relies on overbearing interference from Washington to remake the landscape to her specifications.
Democrats hope that when it comes to international affairs, Clinton would represent a big change from President Bush. Republicans harbor that fear.
In truth, this is one realm where the two are more alike than different.
It's no accident that she voted for the resolution authorizing the president to invade Iraq. And it's no mystery that she was slow to admit the war was failing.
She didn't support the war because she was hoodwinked by Bush. She didn't do it for strictly political reasons.
She supported it because of her conception of America's proper role in the world, which combines a thirst for altruistic missions with a faith in the value of military force to get what you want.
Those same impulses, of course, motivated the neoconservatives who urged Bush to go into Iraq.
On the morning after the South Carolina debate, the Clinton campaign trotted out former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to gush about the senator's declaration that she would not meet with various dictators "until we know better what the way forward would be."
Said Albright, "She gave a very sophisticated answer that showed her understanding of the diplomatic process."
Being praised for your diplomatic sophistication by Albright is like being complimented on your sense of humor by John Kerry.
Albright is the renowned diplomat who helped the Clinton administration blunder its way into an 11-week aerial war in Kosovo.
Albright was confident that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic would cave at the first whiff of gunpowder, and was shocked when he didn't.
That misjudgment had disastrous consequences.
The Serbs responded not by capitulating but by greatly escalating their war on Kosovo's ethnic Albanians.
Some 10,000 of them died, and more than a million were forced from their homes.
If the war was a success, it was a very mixed one. The same could be said about Bosnia and Haiti, where the results fell far short of our intentions.
When she ran for the Senate in 2000, she mocked Republicans (such as Caspar Weinberger and Colin Powell) who think "we should intervene with force only when we face splendid little wars that we surely can win, preferably by overwhelming force in a relatively short period of time."
On the contrary, she said, we "should not ever shy away from the hard task if it is the right one."
As Michael Crowley of The New Republic noted, she had another reason for supporting Bush on Iraq: "I'm a strong believer in executive authority," she said in 2003.
"I wish that, when my husband was president, people in Congress had been more willing to recognize presidential authority."
There you have it.
A Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency promises to unite Madeleine Albright's zeal for using bombs in pursuit of liberal ideals with Dick Cheney's vision of the president as emperor.
Won't that be fun?
Steve Chapman is a member of the Tribune's editorial board. E-mail: schapman@tribune.com
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Clinton didn't intervene in Rhwanda or the Sudan either.
Hillary Clinton is wrong and should look to her husband's administration for guidance. Not only did Bill Clinton talk to Iran, Venezuela and North Korea, he dated them!
From Essentially Estron on the DLC - a.k.a The Democrat Light Committee:
Clinton served as chairman of the DLC from 1990 to 1991, when he resigned his position to launch a successful bid for the presidency. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady, has served as chairwoman of the DLC's American Dream Initiative since July 2005.
The DLC is a nonprofit corporation that believes the Democratic Party should shift away from traditionally populist positions.
Moderate and conservative Democratic leaders founded the organization in 1985 in response to the landslide victory of Ronald Reagan.
The group has advocated economic policies, such as decreased government regulation of big business as-well-as trade agreements that often conflict with the views of traditional Democratic constituencies, especially labor unions.
One of the organization's first projects was a Super Tuesday primary, which directly threatened Iowa's first-in-the-nation status.
The plan was abandoned, however, when the process seemed to be favoring Rev. Jesse Jackson, a vocal critic of the organization, instead one of the DLC's hand-picked Southern conservatives.
Since that time, the DLC has sought to influence the national debate and has founded the Progressive Policy Institute, a Democratic yet conservative think tank.
The current committee chairman is Harold Ford Jr. of Tennessee, a former member member of Congress and visiting professor of public policy at Vanderbilt University.
Ford is also vice chairman and senior policy advisor for Merrill Lynch and was hired in March as a political contributor to Fox News.
By RUSSELL GOLDMAN
July 26, 2007 —
Steven Spielberg, under pressure from Darfur activists, may quit his post as artistic adviser to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, unless China takes a harder line against Sudan, a representative of the film director told ABC News.
"Does Mr. Spielberg really want to go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games," Mia Farrow wrote.
Experts say the actions of individual activists, regardless of their celebrity power, will do little to sway the Chinese.
Quote from John Edwards today:
"The engine of our economy is not Washington, D.C., or Wall Street.
It is the tens of millions of men and women in offices, factories and fields across America who go to work every day trying to do right by their families," he said.
Closing hedge fund and private equity loopholes and capping executive pensions are part of Edwards proposal.
By calling for tax increases for the wealthy, Edwards risks opening himself to criticism that he's a tax-and-spender in the mold of Walter Mondale, the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee who said he would raise taxes.
In the election, Mondale suffered a 49-state defeat, losing everything except his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia to President Reagan.
SEN. CLINTON: “Well, this is getting kind of silly. I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but I’ve never been called George Bush or Dick Cheney, certainly. We have to ask, what’s ever happened to the politics of hope?
“I have been saying consistently for a number of years now, we have to end the Bush era of ignoring problems, ignoring enemies and adversaries.
And I have been absolutely clear that we’ve got to return to robust and effective diplomacy.
But I don’t want to see the power and prestige of the United States president put at risk by rushing into meetings with the likes of Chavez and Castro and Ahmadinejad.”
Des Moines school officials have hired a lawyer to investigate a state auditor's report that said they broke a state law when they approved a construction contract that had been split to bypass the competitive bid process.
"We are doing this as part of our obligation to the community to see that the District and its employees and contractors are accountable for their actions,” school board president Marc Ward said today. “If there were violations of law, we need to get to the bottom of it.”
By Debra Saunders
With Democrats in control of Congress now, expect them to try to water down No Child Left Behind, as Washington works on a bill to reauthorize the landmark Bush education reform enacted in 2002.
That is, expect Democrats to try to squeeze as much money as possible from federal taxpayers -- they rarely complain about spending -- while watering down accountability requirements so that schools don't have to do a better job teaching children.
And they'll do it by undermining the testing system so that illiterate students can be labeled as success stories.
Or, as Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said during a phone interview Friday, "All the people who have railed against too much testing now are for multiple measures" -- which entail more tests, but tests that can hide what children are not learning.
"The more complicated" the tests they propose, "frankly, the more obfuscation" results, Spellings noted.
As Education Week reported in May, Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., a new member and former teacher, wants to add portfolio assessments of student work -- that can include essays, drawings and reports -- to measure whether students are reading and doing math at grade level.
National Education Association President Reg Weaver has proposed the same.
Which shows, as Spellings pointed out, that they can support more testing -- if it is amorphous testing that can pave over gaps in a child's knowledge.
The argument for portfolios, Spellings noted, is, "We're over-testing (students), so let's have more tests."
You've heard the arguments against standardized tests. They are "one size fits all." They do not measure the scope of a child's understanding. They are boring. They represent drill and kill. They are unfair to non-English speakers.
But, as Spellings noted, "The reason we have assessments is to find out how many poor and minority children read at grade level."
If schools had not made a practice of graduating students who do not read or compute at grade level, these tests would not be necessary.
But in that so many students have fallen behind -- while their grades have not -- standardized tests have become an essential tool in the public's quest to find out which schools are failing students, then fixing those schools.
Standardized tests also can help determine which teaching methodologies and textbooks work best with different student groups.
Where critics see "one size fits all," others see tests that can find gaps in student knowledge -- so that teachers can fix them.
In June, a report by the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy found that significant improvement among elementary school math students in 37 of 41 states, as well as improvement in middle school reading in 20 out of 39 states, and in high school reading in 16 out of 37 states, according to The Washington Post.
After years of dumbed-down education, these modest gains are cause for celebration.
dsaunders@sfchronicle.com
'It Didn't Happen'
Democrats go soft on crimes against humanity.
BY JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, July 26, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Barack Obama's latest pronouncement on Iraq should have shocked the conscience.
In an interview with the Associated Press last week, the freshman Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate opined that even preventing genocide is not a sufficient reason to keep American troops in Iraq.
Mr. Obama is engaging in sophistry.
By his logic, if America lacks the capacity to intervene everywhere there is ethnic killing, it has no obligation to intervene anywhere--and perhaps an obligation to intervene nowhere.
His reasoning elevates consistency into the cardinal virtue, making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Further, he elides the distinction between an act of omission (refraining from intervention in Congo and Darfur) and an act of commission (withdrawing from Iraq).
The implication is that although the U.S. has had a military presence in Iraq since 1991, the fate of Iraqis is not America's problem.
Unlike his main rivals for the Democratic nomination, Mr. Obama has been consistent in opposing the liberation of Iraq.
In a 2002 speech, he declared that "an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world."
But Mr. Obama's side lost that argument, and it is no longer 2002.
For America to countenance genocide of Arab Muslims hardly seems a promising way to extinguish the Mideast's flames or to encourage the best impulses of the Arab world.
One may take the position that genocide would not be the likely result of an American retreat from Iraq. That is the view of Mr. Obama's Massachusetts colleague John Kerry, the 2004 presidential nominee.
Mr. Kerry, who served in Vietnam before turning against that war, voted for the Iraq war before turning against it.
He draws on the Vietnam experience in making the case that the outcome of a U.S. pullout from Iraq would not be that bad.
"We heard that argument over and over again about the bloodbath that would engulf the entire Southeast Asia, and it didn't happen," he said recently.
"It didn't happen"--just as Mr. Kerry predicted it wouldn't.
In his June 1971 debate with fellow swift boat veteran John O'Neill on "The Dick Cavett Show," the 27-year-old Mr. Kerry said, "There's absolutely no guarantee that there would be a bloodbath. . . . One has to, obviously, conjecture on this.
However, I think the arguments clearly indicate that there probably wouldn't be. . . . There is no interest on the part of the North Vietnamese to try to massacre the people once people have agreed to withdraw."
Mr. Kerry acknowledged that "there would be certain political assassinations," but said they would number only "four or five thousand."
Here is what did happen:
In 1973, the U.S. withdrew its troops from Vietnam, as Mr. Kerry had urged. In December 1974, the Democratic Congress ended military aid to South Vietnam. In April 1975, Saigon fell.
According to a 2001 investigation by the Orange County Register, Hanoi's communist regime imprisoned a million Vietnamese without charge in "re-education" camps, where an estimated 165,000 perished.
"Thousands were abused or tortured: their hands and legs shackled in painful positions for months, their skin slashed by bamboo canes studded with thorns, their veins injected with poisonous chemicals, their spirits broken with stories about relatives being killed," the Register reported.
Laos and Cambodia also fell to communists in 1975.
Time magazine reported in 1978 that some 40,000 Laotians had been imprisoned in re-education camps: "The regime's figures do not include 12,000 unfortunates who have been packed off to Phong Saly.
There, no pretense at re-education is made. As one high Pathet Lao official told Australian journalist John Everingham, who himself spent eight days in a Lao prison last year, 'No one ever returns.' "
The postwar horrors of Vietnam and Laos paled next to the "killing fields" of Cambodia, where the Khmer Rouge undertook an especially vicious revolution.
During that regime's 3 1/2-year rule, at least a million Cambodians, and perhaps as many as two million, died from starvation, disease, overwork or murder.
The Vietnamese invaders who toppled the Khmer Rouge in 1979 were liberators, albeit only by comparison.
In the aftermath of America's withdrawal from Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of refugees fled Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
According to the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees, between 1975 and 1995 more than 1.4 million Indochinese escaped, nearly 800,000 of them by boat.
This does not include "boat people" who died at sea, 10% of the total by some estimates.
Mr. Obama's blasé cynicism about the possibility of genocide in Iraq is of a piece with Mr. Kerry's denial of the humanitarian catastrophe that followed America's departure from Vietnam.
It also creates an opportunity for the Democratic front-runner.
In 1998, Hillary Clinton's husband traveled to Rwanda, where he apologized for failing to intervene to prevent the 1994 genocide in which Hutus massacred some 800,000 Tutsis.
"We cannot change the past," President Clinton said. "But we can and must do everything in our power to help you build a future without fear, and full of hope."
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