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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 [...]
Filed under: politics
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. [...]
Filed under: politics
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 [...]
Filed under: politics
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 [...]
Filed under: politics
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 [...]
Filed under: politics
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 [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
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 [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
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 [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
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 [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
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? [...]