Dog Bites Man

More allegations of abuse of Iraqi prisoners. The twist? The ACLU is up in arms becomes an American soldier who allegedly shot and killed a belligerent prisoner was released on a procedural issue. Isn't the ACLU supposed to be guarding the rights of the accused by making sure that due process is followed, and failing that, that the alleged criminal is given the benefit of the doubt and released?

Dems Dragged Kicking and Screaming to the Center

The Democratic leadership is considering a "softening" of its pro-abortion stance. This is excellent -- hope it happens. It would strengthen the Democrats and could signal the beginnings of political compromise on the most divisive issue in politics today.

Or they could listen to Dean and just change the curtains but keep all the furniture.

Getting So Much Better All the Time: Changing Senate Looks Better to Abortion Foes

Staunch abortion opponents Coburn and Brownback have been added to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Don't know if this will suffice to keep Specter honest, but it can't hurt.

Hat Tip: Mike Aquilina

Michael Crichton on Scientism

A delightful discovery: an excellent lecture by Michael Crichton to CalTech students on junk science trends in modern policy and media. Crichton's got a great list: The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, The Population Bomb, Nuclear Winter, Second Hand Smoke. He suggests Global Warming is the latest deity to be added to this dubious pantheon. There are lots of good points here, e.g., the tension between the methodological demands of good empirical science and the sociological realities of the use and abuse of consensus.

Antony Flew

Atheist Flew has gone theist. How significant is this? Well, he's not getting circumcised or baptized any time soon. However, considering that less than 10 years ago, he was criticizing Stephen Hawking for conceding too much to believers, it's hard not to see it as a major change in views of a leading apologist for atheism.

Still Tone Deaf? Dems Join the Church of Christ Without Christ

Wonkette reports on a gathering of religious leaders at the Center for American Progress to help the flagging Democrats with their Faith Problem. These leaders, along with Democratic bigwig John Podesta, reportedly sang "You Have the Whole World in Your Hands." That's strange, when we were young we always sang a song called "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." In our version, the referent of "He" and "His" was clearly the Lord God Almighty, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Is the CAP's version intended to be addressed to the Democratic Party, who has the whole world in its hands, if it just believes? Maybe we're reading too much into this, but it sounds to us like these "religious leaders" seem to view faith primarily as self-affirmations -- religion as self-deifying pep rally.

File under "They Just Don't Get It."

UPDATE: On second thought, maybe it's just yet another awkward way of making traditional texts "gender neutral." If so, it's still revealing of the faith stylings of the Democratic Party.

UPDATE: Wonkette has put a correction on her site. They got the song right after all. Figures. If you can't trust Wonkette with an election, can you trust her with a hymn?

Netherlands Dispatches Sick Children to the Netherworld

At least one Dutch hospital currently has a policy of killing terminally ill, incurable, or extremely deformed newborns. This story is as predictable as it is saddening.

Hat tip: James Taranto at Best of the Web on OpinionJournal (scroll down).

Treacherous Tehran, Bush Holding Fast

According to the New York Times, Iran Says It Will Suspend but Not End Its Uranium Program. W is not satisfied.

Wine from Texas, Missouri, and Other Republican Strongholds

Interesting article on wine from Red states. Who knew?

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics (Divorce American Style)

The Internet is now filled with claims about the low divorce rate for blue states, the high divorce rates for red states, and what it means for voters who supposedly put Bush back in office because of moral values (Hint: it begins in "hypo" and ends in "crisy."). This first appeared in the New York Times a week ago. Many of our friends have joyously pointed out this supposed inconsistency.

The only problem is that it's not true. Those calculations were done as a proportion of population, which means that states with a low rate of marriage also have a low rate of divorce. But clearly any state which has no marriages will have no divorces. Which states have low rates of marriage? Umm, the blue ones. When you properly calculate divorce rates as a fraction of marriages, the supposed correlation vanishes. Poof. Powerline Blog has a good post on this.

The person who gathered this factoid could have easily checked this (there were no citations for this statistic, either). The Left keeps asking what "moral values" means to Red America. For one thing, it means not lying -- not saying something you know to be untrue in an effort to deceive (that's what we poor Bush-voting rubes mean by "lying.")

By far the biggest loser in this election was not John Kerry, but rather mainstream media. And if they keep this up, they'll just keep on losing.

Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Read Slate

Slate cites a Washington Post story as follows: "The Washington Post leads with American commanders in Iraq saying they need more troops to continue hunting insurgents." The headline reads "Troops, We Need You Again." Once again, we're short on troops! Doom is right around the corner! On the other hand, Here's the original WaPo article.
Here's the lede:

"[Unnamed s]enior U.S. military commanders in Iraq say it is increasingly likely they will need a further increase in combat forces to put down remaining areas of resistance in the country."

Note the following:

1. Unnamed sources
2. of an unspecified number (more than one).
3. and an unspecified rank
4. say it is becoming likely (not certain) that they will (in the future) need further troops.

The Post continues:

Convinced that the recent battle for Fallujah has significantly weakened insurgent ranks, commanders here have devised plans to press the offensive into neighborhoods where rebels have either taken refuge after fleeing Fallujah or were already deeply entrenched.
But the forces available for these intensified operations have become limited by the demands of securing Fallujah and overseeing the massive reconstruction effort there -- demands that senior U.S. military officers say are likely to tie up a substantial number of Marines and Army troops for weeks.

A bit more nuanced than Slate's summary, isn't it? The numbers of troops these officers are talking about is "the equivalent of several battalions, or about 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers." The current number of troops there is 138,000, so we are saying that some officers are now saying we need to increase our commitment by two or three percent. The whole thrust of the article is that these unnamed officers have come to this conclusion only in the wake of the battle in Fallujah, not that there has been an underlying lack of personnel that they have been bemoaning. Reading further in the story, different options are being considered. If they need more troops, they should get them, but this is a tactical question, not the sweeping question of war management we might think if we took Slate's summary at face value.

UN workers to condemn chief with vote of "no confidence"

Herald Sun: UN workers to condemn chief [20nov04]: "Mr Annan has been in the line of fire over a high-profile series of scandals including a UN aid program that investigators said allowed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to embezzle billions of dollars.
But staffers said the trigger for the no-confidence measure was an announcement this week that Mr Annan had pardoned the UN's top oversight official, who was facing allegations of favouritism and sexual harassment. "

Count me a union man.

Specter Survives as Chairman

Republicans are backing Specter, the New York Times reports. If Specter reverts to form, this will be devastating for Republicans in '06 and '08. Pro-life voters will not turn out.

The Unteachable Ignorance of Jane Smiley.

We saw Jane Smiley's "The unteachable ignorance of the red states."
up on Slate. Here are some delightful excerpts:

Here is how ignorance works: First, they put the fear of God into you—if you don't believe in the literal word of the Bible, you will burn in hell. Of course, the literal word of the Bible is tremendously contradictory, and so you must abdicate all critical thinking, and accept a simple but logical system of belief that is dangerous to question. A corollary to this point is that they make sure you understand that Satan resides in the toils and snares of complex thought and so it is best not try it.

Next, they tell you that you are the best of a bad lot (humans, that is) and that as bad as you are, if you stick with them, you are among the chosen. This is flattering and reassuring, and also encourages you to imagine the terrible fates of those you envy and resent. American politicians ALWAYS operate by a similar sort of flattery, and so Americans are never induced to question themselves. That's what happened to Jimmy Carter—he asked Americans to take responsibility for their profligate ways, and promptly lost to Ronald Reagan, who told them once again that they could do anything they wanted. The history of the last four years shows that red state types, above all, do not want to be told what to do—they prefer to be ignorant. As a result, they are virtually unteachable.

Third, and most important, when life grows difficult or fearsome, they (politicians, preachers, pundits) encourage you to cling to your ignorance with even more fervor. But by this time you don't need much encouragement—you've put all your eggs into the ignorance basket, and really, some kind of miraculous fruition (preferably accompanied by the torment of your enemies, and the ignorant always have plenty of enemies) is your only hope. If you are sufficiently ignorant, you won't even know how dangerous your policies are until they have destroyed you, and then you can always blame others.

The reason the Democrats have lost five of the last seven presidential elections is simple: A generation ago, the big capitalists, who have no morals, as we know, decided to make use of the religious right in their class war against the middle class and against the regulations that were protecting those whom they considered to be their rightful prey—workers and consumers. The architects of this strategy knew perfectly well that they were exploiting, among other unsavory qualities, a long American habit of virulent racism, but they did it anyway, and we see the outcome now—Cheney is the capitalist arm and Bush is the religious arm.

Since Ms. Smiley is big on critical thinking, may we ask to whom she is referring when she writes "they"? Should we assume that Karl Rove rolled into town telling people to pray? We assume Smiley believes that devout belief and rational thought are mutually incompatible.

We're distrustful of someone who starts a paragraph, "here is how ignorance works." Especially distressing coming from the Party of Nuance. Then Smiley veers straight for Tinfoil Hat Country when she invokes Big Capitalists and Shadowy Religious Hucksters Conspiring in Dark Corners to Enslave America.

Would we be taken seriously if we wrote, "a generation ago, the international banking cartel decided to make use of the freemasons in their war against modern America"? We hope not. But presumably Slate readers don't blink an eye at her mild derangement.

Interestingly she doesn't think the Bush supporters in her family are ignorant (although she does accuse them of being greedy).

Her selective memory when it comes to Jimmy Carter is also telling. When he lost to Reagan, both he and Rosalyn openly derided the Reagans as immoral, doing his little Church Lady superior dance. Then again, Smiley herself seems to think that anyone who disagrees with her is a moral leper. The take-home lesson: it's fine to be self-righteous, provided you back the Democrats.

Abortion, the Glue that Holds this Country Together!

I just had a delightful lunch with dear friends, one liberal, one conservative. My left-leaning friend recycled a bit of Lawrence O'Donnell's fevered secession theorizing. He furthered added the wrinkle that if Roe v. Wade is overturned in the Supreme Court, the logic of O'Donnell's "blue states subsidize red states" talk becomes overwhelming, and secession becomes a done deal. Forget the common heritage of political freedom, ordered liberty, free speech, etc. According to this train-wreck of thought, any Union that doesn't guarantee the right of doctors and pregnant women to suction the brains out of a 8-month fetus will be de-legitimized and seen as not worth defending.

I'm waiting for NARAL to grab the title of my post for a bumper sticker. Catchy, no?

What Next?

It appears that the Battle of Fallujah has been largely won by the combined Coalition and Iraqi forces. Combined Iraqi and Coalition deaths are about fifty; the insurgents have seen over 1,200 of their men killed and another thousand or so taken prisoner. So where are our forces going next?

Mosul: US tightens its grip on Mosul (UK Telegraph).
Ramadi: Troops battle guerrillas in Ramadi (UK telegraph).
Baiji: With Mosul Now Calmer, Fighting Flares Elsewhere (LA Times).

Safe, Legal, and Rare -- OK, We'll Take One out of Three

F.D.A. Strengthens Warning on the Abortion Pill. Seems that a California woman died of sepsis (bacterial blood poisoning) after using the mifepristone abortion pill. She is the third woman in the U.S. to die from this pill. A Johns Hopkins professor of gynecology (and, coincidentally, an adviser to Planned Parenthood) assures us that mifepristone is safer than pregnancy.

So Nice to Find Out We Have Something In Common!

Gerhard Schröder eulogizes Yasser Arafat: "he regrets that 'it was not granted to Yasser Arafat to complete his life's work.'" Hmm, his life's work? Driving Israel into the sea and killing all Jews? I suppose it's uncharitable to point out what Schröder's predecessor considered his life's work or struggle six decades ago.

Newsday is scared

The editors of New York Newsday are frightened by the remote prospect of a reversal of Roe. L'affaire Specter has them trembling. Good.

The New York Times > Health > I Beg to Differ: A Diabetes Researcher Forges Her Own Path to a Cure

Interesting Times article shows potential for cure for diabetes. The catch? It doesn't involve stem cells, and the drug that would be used is cheap.

Huh?

Following Fallujah

Found an excellent blogger who is covering Fallujah pretty devotedly: The Adventures of Chester (here's his Atom XML feed). The news so far leads us to a very cautious optimism.

Peter and Paul

Peter Singer turns on Paul Krugman regarding the advice for Dems to visibly "value faith." (Actually, Nick Kristof was far more explicit about this -- Krugman was typically banal and anodyne). The delicious ironies multiply past all count. The in-fighting has officially commenced.

Of course, we've already established that Singer (admirably) refuses to act on his "rational beliefs" when it comes to his mother. He should consider that before he offers advice. He was very defensive about his payment for his mother's very expensive medical treatment, and I agree that that is a private matter for him. But he should consider that if even he can't act consistently in accord with his supposedly rational world view, expecting voters to do so is a losing proposition.

The gnashing of teeth -- music to my ears.

The Fallujah Offensive Begins

CNN and FoxNews detail the start of the Fallujah ground offensive: Iraqi and U.S. troops have moved into the western part of the city, seizing a hospital and securing two bridges. May God bless and keep these soldiers fighting to preserve liberty in 2 countries.

"The Roe=Scott Code"

Writing in the Nation, Katha Pollitt misunderstands the relationship between Roe v. Wade and Dred Scott for anti-abortion advocates. The Scott decision did not simply state that the Constitution allowed slavery. Few argued that, certainly not Lincoln. Rather, the decision held, in Lincoln's summary, "first, that a Negro cannot sue in the U.S. Courts; and secondly, that Congress cannot prohibit slavery in the Territories." It determined this without any Constitutional warrant. Anti-abortion advocates argue that in a similar way, Roe held that the unborn have no legal standing as persons, and that neither Congress nor state legislatures can prohibit abortion. In a similar manner, these holdings could not be located in the actual language of the Constitution or in its legislative history.

Stop Specter Now

National Review Online urges us to contact our Senators and let them know that we do not support Specter for chairman of the judiciary committee.

Military Attack 'Wrong Way to End Fallujah Revolt'

As I readthis article in The Scotsman (Military Attack 'Wrong Way to End Fallujah Revolt'), there seems to be some internal division in the Iraqi interim government regarding the impending battle in Fallujah. Interim PM Allawi is preparing for it, whereas interim president al-Yawer is opposed to a military assault. My guess is that the attack is a foregone conclusion, and that Allawi will give the go-ahead.

Michael Moore Gets Results!

According to the MEMRI (you know them, they do lots of translations of Arabic media):

The tape of Osama bin Laden that was aired on Al-Jazeera on Friday, October 29th included a specific threat to "each U.S. state," designed to influence the outcome of the upcoming election against George W. Bush. The U.S. media in general mistranslated the words "ay wilaya" (which means "each U.S. state") to mean a "country" or "nation" other than the U.S., while in fact the threat was directed specifically at each individual U.S. state. This suggests some knowledge by bin Laden of the U.S. electoral college system. In a section of his speech in which he harshly criticized George W. Bush, bin Laden stated: "Any U.S. state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security."

Compare this with Michael Moore's 9/12/2001 rant:

Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California--these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!

Explosives Missing In Iraq

This is not good. Will follow this as it develops. . . .

UPDATE: story has changed a lot:

1. Explosives were not there when troops arrived.


2. Explosives started disappearing before IAEA/UN inspectors left.


3. Story was leaked by El-Baradei in an attempt to influence the U.S. election.


4. Story not placed in context of other found weapons caches.

Long story short, I wish we had found these, but life isn't perfect, and I'm neither losing sleep nor blaming the troops or Administration.

Catholic Online - Featured Today - SPECIAL: On Our Civic Responsibility for the Common Good

Catholic Online - Featured Today - SPECIAL: On Our Civic Responsibility for the Common Good. Archbishop Burke on abortion, voting, and the seamless garment.

Chaput Breaks It Down In The Times

Mike Aquilina sends us this excellent op-ed from Archbishop Chaput, a great corrective to the nonsense in last week's Times piece by Mark Noll. In case the anyone was confusing the "seamless garment" with a fig leaf for abortion support.

Terrorism Roundup

1000 Al-Qaeda 'warriors' inside Iraq

In case there's any doubt about exactly who we're fighting in Iraq, this story in the Australian press should clarify.

Al-Zarqawi’s vow to al-Qaida may signal weakness

The Nashua Telegraph reminds us that the renewed efforts of Al-Zarqawi to claim the mantle of Al Qaida may indicate weakness and desperation more than anything else. Good to keep in mind.

Bin Laden, Bin Laden, who's got Bin Laden?

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that Bin Laden's not in Pakistan, and no one knows where he is. On the other hand, 'Osama is alive and now in Pak' - The Times of India. Meanwhile, The Paks pull down one high profile Al-Qaida operator and the Saudis bag another one.

The Guardian Attempts to Influence the Election

This one is priceless: the left-wing UK Guardian is encouraging enlightened citizens on the far side of the pond to adopt a hapless Yank and instruct him how to vote. We're touched. Really. No idea how we've managed without you.

Hat Tip: Joi Ito

Yahoo! News - Heinz Kerry Separates Self From Mrs. Bush

Yahoo! News - Heinz Kerry Separates Self From Mrs. Bush
Open mouth, insert foot -- just another day for Mrs. Heinz Kerry.

Pope Pinch I

The good folks at the New York Times weigh in again, this time criticizing the beatification of Charles I, the last Hapsburg emperor of Austria-Hungary. No mention is made of whether he was a faithful Catholic, displayed sanctity and virtue, led a holy life, or any of that "saint" stuff. Apparently, being a monarch should disqualify him. And some people say he was "weak." Fancy being weak when you inherit a crumbling, war-torn empire at 29! Everything reduces to the political in the view of the Times.

We can't wait until they take this to the logical conclusion and demand that the College of Cardinals be replaced by the editorial board of the Times, and the elevation of "Pinch" Sulzberger to the position of Pontiff. Then we could look forward to the establishment of abortion as a sacrament.

Kerry's Poor Hamster

Nixon's most prominent dirty-trickster Donald Segretti had a term for antics like John Kerry's slimey tactic of dragging Cheney's daughter into the debate: "ratf***ing." (Maybe in Kerry's case, it should be called "hamsterf***ing," in light of Kerry's curious admitted predisposition to get intimate with these animals.) It was as gratuitous as it was ugly. Exploitation of opponents' family members does not belong in this race, period. Kerry and Edwards owe the Cheneys an apology. (Good luck getting one.) Kudos to Mickey Kaus at Slate for running with this.

These Keep Popping Up

This horrific news in from BBC NEWS: Babies found in Iraqi mass grave. We are left speechless.

ScrappleFace: Kerry Says Do-Not-Terrorize List Would End Nuisance

This one is nice, too:

ScrappleFace: Kerry Says Do-Not-Terrorize List Would End Nuisance

ScrappleFace: Object Under Bush Jacket Identified: 'It's a Spine'

ScrappleFace weighs in on the "remote-feed" leftist-fringe paranoia:

ScrappleFace: Object Under Bush Jacket Identified: 'It's a Spine'

Conscience vs. Religion

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: Voting Our Conscience, Not Our Religion

Mark Noll explains why good Catholics don't have to oppose abortion at the ballot box:

During the eight years of the Reagan presidency, the number of legal abortions increased by more than 5 percent; during the eight years of the Clinton presidency, the number dropped by 36 percent. The overall abortion rate (calculated as the number of abortions per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44) was more or less stable during the Reagan years, but during the Clinton presidency it dropped by 11 percent.

There are many reasons for this shift. Yet surely the traditional Democratic concern with the social safety net makes it easier for pregnant women to make responsible decisions and for young life to flourish; among the most economically disadvantaged, abortion rates have always been and remain the highest. The world's lowest abortion rates are in Belgium and the Netherlands, where abortion is legal but where the welfare state is strong. Latin America, where almost all abortions are illegal, has one of the highest rates in the world.

Got that? Bill Clinton actually fought abortion by doing absolutely nothing to restrict abortion, including partial birth abortion. He also spent considerably less on the welfare state than President Bush. So why again does Clinton deserve credit? Note also that all that matters to Noll are the raw numbers, not the effect on a Christian, democratic society of having judges designate child murder as a hollowed touchstone of civil government.

Noll also has one of the worst summaries of Just War theory that I have ever read. Noll should and probably does know better -- he's a philosophy professor at Notre Dame. He also makes it sound like the Kyoto treaty and socialized medicine were mentioned in Humanae Vitae, right before that stuff on contraception. The issue of deliberate killing of innocent children is equated with prudential questions concerning criminal punishment, stewardship of economy and ecology, etc.

Noll's title alludes to a conflict never mentioned in the article: "conscience" vs. "religion." My impression was that conscience was, in the Catholic view, to be formed and informed by faith. This title plays much more to the Times audience, who assume that good Catholics are torn between their enlightened modern consciences and their medieval popery.

The New York Times has found another subservient Catholic who puts loyalty to party line above clarity on doctrine. (Richard McBrien and Andrew Greeley must have been out of town.) The rest of you have to learn, in the words of a New York Times editor as cited by Richard John Neuhaus, "how we do things here."

(Hat tip: Pat Schuchman.)

UPDATE:

Mike Aquilina sends me a link to this piece: Commonweal : Catholics, Politics & Abortion. It's an article by Kenneth Woodward taking on Mario Cuomo, whose 1984 speech at Notre Dame on the subject has become the rhetorical model for most Catholic pro-abortion politicians. Cuomo also responds to Woodward. Haven't finished it myself, but both men are generally worth reading.

Jacques Derrida Dies; Deconstructionist Philosopher (washingtonpost.com)

Jacques Derrida Dies; Deconstructionist Philosopher (washingtonpost.com)

What to say about the passing of Derrida? Chirac hails him. I'm waiting for Bush's comment.

Exclusive: Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties -- 10/04/2004

Exclusive: Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties -- 10/04/2004

Very interesting story, if it's true. Waiting to see if it pans out.

Kerry's Pyrrhic Debate Victory

The conventional wisdom is in. Kerry won the debate.

Here's why the G.O.P. should not worried. Kerry looked presidential, was calm and composed, spoke well, had better style, and made no obvious gaffes. Bush, by contrast, sounded tired, slurred his speech, missed opportunities to counter, was visibly annoyed during some of Kerry's answers. Kerry shoots up in the polls, no downside for the Dems, right?

Not so fast. There are a number of things that are coming back to haunt Kerry: The "Global Test," the advocacy of a freeze on nuclear bunker-buster development (a weapon that would be ideally suited to rogue nations and terrorists sheltering destructive weapons in underground redoubts), the advocacy of delivering nuclear fuel to Tehran and conceding to Pyongyang in their desire for bilateral talks with the U.S. I don't hear similar issues being raised by the Democrats -- they seem content to focus on a generic tone of failure, etc.

If Kerry won the debate on style, made no unintentional gaffes, looked well-rested, lucid, etc., it becomes more difficult to argue that Kerry didn't intend these, indeed that these are not the well-thought out and consistent positions of a man who supported both a U.S. nuclear-freeze and establishing a warm relationship with the Sandinistas in the 80's (his eulogies and warm praises for the late President Reagan notwithstanding).

100 Al-Qaeda men killed in military operations: Musharraf : HindustanTimes.com

100 Al-Qaeda men killed in military operations: Musharraf : HindustanTimes.com


Ongoing operations against Al Qaeda tend not to be well-reported in the U.S. press, so I'm doing my bit.

Belmont Club

This post on Belmont Club has a cool story on terrorism and social networking.

Wonkette Gets McGreevey Hilariously Wrong

In Gayest News Day Ever, Ana Marie Cox writes
"Sure, the most recent spin on McGreevey is that his being gay wasn't the problem, his being crooked like a sidewalk crack was. We'd like to point out that New Jersey almost never has a problem with politicians being crooked. What's more, we wouldn't be having this discussion if he'd hired his pretty young lady friend to be New Jersey's terrorism czar. . . because he never would have gotten away with hiring a woman for that job in the first place."

Hmm. A glib dismissal of serious corruption (ah, it's only New Jersey, that's practically Haiti), followed by a tweak of the Evil Bigoted Man, keeping the Sisters down. Yeah, Wonkette, that's the REAL story.

Let's see, there's a black woman who's the National Security Advisor, but Cox thinks that a woman would never fly for New Jersey's security chief? Talk about victimization on the cheap.

John Leo in U.S. News

This is an excellent article on the current state of public discussion. John Leo puts his finger on something that's been bothering me for a while -- a growing disregard for civil discourse on all sides.

USNews.com: John Leo: Let's keep arguing (6/21/04)

Hat tip: Mike Aquilina

Town Meeting of the World: Robert Kennedy and Ronald Reagan

Town Meeting of the World: Robert Kennedy and Ronald Reagan

This reverses nearly every media stereotype of Ronald Reagan. He is in command of facts, is forceful, clear, detailed, and insightful. Kennedy is, by contrast, fuzzy and vague.