Days after the president’s second term acceptance speech, which was full of optimism for the blessed success of democracy and freedom in Iraq, the Middle East and the world, the White House revealed that, on top of the $25 billion in “emergency spending” in Iraq already approved for this year, it will ask Congress for […]

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We were not alone in finding that the extravagant, massively policed, $40-million presidential inauguration parade and the chief executive’s wimpy acceptance speech, followed by the 10 expensive ballroom galas, were bad news. A headline in the New York Times Week in Review section called the Bush oration “A Speech About Nothing, Something, Everything.” In his 21-minute inaugural […]

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Off the Air—It took President Bush three days from the time of the tsunami disaster to meet with reporters at his Texas ranch. He told them that the United States would send $15 million in foreign aid to help the victims of the earthquake and tidal wave in southern Asia, a historic cataclysm that has […]

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To most of us the Electoral College is so inscrutable and immutable that we don’t grasp how much it is also so undemocratic and inequitable. Now we have just seen it go through its antique antics again. Under the chairmanship of Vice President Dick Cheney, a joint session of Congress met in the House of […]

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The hard-right Heritage Foundation recently mailed a warning that the Democratic left is “angrier than ever” and “continues to be a danger to our country,” so “we need to take these people seriously.” Take them seriously? As Will Rogers put it, “I am not a member of any organized party—I am a Democrat.” For the […]

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