NewsTrust - Presidential Election 2008 - Most Recent Stories: Opinion

Free speech for me, but not for thee

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Sep. 11 (Editorial) - HILLARY: THE MOVIE” is unwatchable. From the first frame, it presents a dreary caricature of Hillary Clinton as a power-crazed harpy with no redeeming qualities. She is cynical, manipulative, dishonest and ruthless—and so on for 90 excruciating minutes. Wasn’t there at least a dog she once omitted to kick, or a child whose lollipop she didn’t steal?

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The insanity and enduring racism of the American right

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Matthew Norman - Jul. 30 (Opinion) - As we gloomily maintain the deathbed vigil for a Government whose end cannot come soon enough, it is the opposite end of the life-cycle that fixates US politics. Fittingly enough, on the eve of the nine-month anniversary of Barack Obama's election,

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Why Palin Quit

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - Jul. 08 (Opinion) - People close to Sarah Palin say national political reporters and pundits have missed the real reasons for her surprising decision to resign as Alaska governor. The national media have dismissed or downplayed her real motives, which had little to do with any plans to run for president in 2012.

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Stonewall Plus Forty

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New Yorker - By Hendrik Hertzberg - Jun. 30 (Opinion) - The President has said all the right things. But there have been signs, before the election and after, that where gays are concerned his fine-tuned ear for the emotional resonance of his actions has an alloy of tin.

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How the Republicans can reverse their decline.

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Jacob Weisberg - Jun. 02 (Opinion) - There has been little open acknowledgement on the right of the depth of the problem, let alone any sign of the wholesale rethinking that the GOP needs to return to viability.

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Pragmatism Obama Style

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Weekly Standard - By Peter Berkowitz - Apr. 27 (Opinion) - As candidate and as president, Barack Obama has presented himself as a postpartisan pragmatist. He has generally refrained from speaking in explicitly ideological terms, and earned a reputation as a silver-tongued orator. Yet on important issues he has seemed anything but pragmatic, adopting rigidly left-liberal or progressive views, suppressing salient consequences, and putting forward misleading or incomplete arguments disrespectful of the case on the other side. In fact, Obama is a pragmatist, but of a kind that is anything but postpartisan.

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Tough talk for Republicans

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Times - By Terry Nelson - Jan. 30 (Opinion) - The Republican Party is afflicted by two principal ailments, a hangover from the presidency of George W. Bush and a longing for Ronald Reagan. Complicating matters is our own misdiagnosis. It is time for us to recognize that the electorate has changed. We cannot continue to think that the United States is a center-right nation. The 2008 election demonstrated that this is no longer true, at least in an electoral sense. Republicans held some form of power from 1995 to 2009. We can confidently say that the legacy of this era will be great policy achievements: lower taxes, a reformed welfare system, a more secure world and a more accountable educational system.

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Obama: A breathtaking beginning

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Rupert Cornwell - Jan. 25 (Opinion) - The Bush administration's scorn for internationally stipulated rights of prisoners, its disregard for science, its high-handed foreign policy, and its blind veneration of the market – Obama disowned them all. So much so, indeed, that some Bush staffers went public with their fury when they learnt of the speech's contents.

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Charles Krauthammer - The Obama Inaugural: Hail Washington -- Not Lincoln

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Charles Krauthammer - Jan. 22 (Editorial) - But now that Obama was president, the redeemer was withholding, the tone newly sober, even dour. The world was still in Bushian ruin, marked by "fear . . . conflict . . . discord . . . petty grievances and false promises . . . recriminations and worn-out dogmas." But no more the prospect of magical restoration. In a stunning exercise in lowered expectations, Obama offered not quite blood, sweat and tears, but responsibility, work, sacrifice and service.

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Election Review, Part 3: The West

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Real Clear Politics - By Jay Cost, Sean Trende - Jan. 18 (Opinion) - Today we continue our analysis of the 2008 election with a review of the Western Region. This Census Bureau region consists of two divisions: the Pacific West and the Mountain West. Pacific West The Pacific West is unique if for no other reason than two of its five states were the home states of Presidential candidates. Because of this, it is difficult to analyze these states' voting patterns. Given the state of McCain's Alaska polling before the Republican convention, it seems unlikely that he would have won the state by twenty points without Palin on the ticket. Similarly, Obama's ties to Hawaii probably added to his 40-point victory there. In other words, because of the personal nature of the vote in these small states, we just can't glean too much useful information from them.

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Obama Does and Doesn't Fulfill King's Dream

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Earl Ofari Hutchinson - Jan. 18 (Editorial) - The unchallenged article of faith is that the election of President Barack Obama fulfills Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream that the content of character should trump skin color. King uttered the words in his March on Washington speech in 1963. We'll hear that said time and again in the march up to the King national holiday January 19 and Obama's inauguration the next day.

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The case for hope: A reflection on the 2008 White House race and America's future - UPI.com

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

United Press International - By Isaac Pacheco - Jan. 15 (Opinion) - The balloons have dropped from the rafters; the tinsel has been swept from the ballroom floors. Americans have made their voices heard at the polls, and today, during one of our nation's most tumultuous times, we prepare for an inauguration that signals the fruition of a historic presidential election.

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Works, Not Words

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By Nathan J. Diament - Dec. 29 (Opinion) - In office, Obama has a chance to show his sensitivity to religious voters' concerns, and, in some cases, advance policies that are important to them, without sacrificing Democratic principles.

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Senator Coleman, Give Yourself Two Christmas Presents - Acceptance & Peace

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Yvonne R. Davis - Dec. 27 (Opinion) - Sir, I want to know if you would kindly consider giving yourself two Christmas presents this year - 1. Acceptance of what is meant to be wrapped in a big white bow and 2. Peace of Mind dressed in gold wrapping paper with yellow ribbons.

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Appointments

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New Yorker - By Hendrik Hertzberg - Dec. 22 (Opinion) - What if Governor Paterson, prompted by the squalor of his Illinois colleague’s maneuverings, were to put aside mundane calculations and take full advantage of his theoretically unfettered freedom of choice?

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How the hell did Rick Warren get inauguration tickets?

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Salon - By Mike Madden - Dec. 19 (Opinion) - So about the only thing less surprising than the outrage that news of Warren's selection to give the invocation at Obama's inauguration is prompting among gay activists, liberals and Obama supporters generally is probably Warren's appearance on the program in the first place.

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Embrace What You Have In Common With Rick Warren

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Lee Stranahan - Dec. 18 (Opinion) - Apparently, Barack Obama meant what he said about our politics being too small for our problems. With job layoffs and new miserable financial statistics being announced every day, how else can we explain the press and some Republicans being endlessly fascinated with the non-connection between between Obama and Blagojevich? How else does one explain the thrashing about of some progressives over the idea of Pastor Rick Warren saying a few minutes of prayer at Obama's inauguration? The answer is simple; we currently practice a mighty small politics in the United States.

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Obama's Inaugural Mistake

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Joe Solmonese - Dec. 18 (Opinion) - It is difficult to comprehend how our president-elect, who has been so spot on in nearly every political move and gesture, could fail to grasp the symbolism of inviting an anti-gay theologian to deliver his inaugural invocation. And the Obama campaign's response to the anger about this decision? Hey, we're also bringing a gay marching band. You know how the gays love a parade.

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The 2008 Election in Verse

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By John Lundberg - Dec. 07 (Review) - Calvin Trillin, responding to Daily Show host John Stewart's impish description of his new book in verse on the 2008 election Deciding the Next Decider, joked, "You made me feel like one of those guys who's done the Palace of Versaille in beer cans." No, John Milton he isn't. Trillin is a comedic writer with a gift for light verse. And it was clear from last week's Daily Show interview that he understands that his latest project--chronicling politics in rhyming couplets--is a little goofy. He refers to his book in a tongue-in-cheek fashion as "epic" (it is, in fact, written in heroic verse). But while the author himself calls it doggerel, as you'll see from these excerpts on John McCain, his verse can be very biting:

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Postmortem: Dicin’ And Slicin’

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New Yorker - By Lauren Collins - Nov. 30 (Opinion) - The former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who won eight states and more than four million votes in the Republican Presidential primaries, spent Election Night at home in Little Rock. Eating takeout in the den with his family and a few staffers, Huckabee wasn’t surprised to see Barack Obama win, although he couldn’t help but think that things might not have turned out the way they did had he been the nominee. “It would’ve been very different,” he said the other day. “Because I would’ve campaigned that the economy was headed toward meltdown. And I was saying this back when I was getting laughed at by the Wall Street Journal and pilloried by the National Review. They were just dicin’ and slicin’ me for not following the company line.”

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Gay Marriage and a Moral Minority

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Charles M. Blow - Nov. 29 (Opinion) - A strikingly high percentage of blacks said they voted to ban same-sex marriage in California. Why?

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Noam Chomsky: "What Next? The Elections, the Economy, and the World"

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Noam Chomsky - Nov. 24 (Interview) - 80% of the population say that the country’s going in the wrong direction. About 80% say the government doesn’t work to the benefit of the people, it works for the few and the special interests. A startling 94% complain that the government doesn’t pay any attention to the public will, and on like that. Under conditions like that, you would expect a landslide to a opposition almost whoever they are. And there wasn’t one. So one might ask why wasn’t there a landslide? That goes off in an interesting direction. And other respects the outcome was pretty familiar. So once again, the election was essentially bought. 9 out of 10 of the victors outspent their opponents.

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Voter Registration Should Be Automatic

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Hartford Courant - By Robyn Blumner - Nov. 23 (Opinion) - The problems arose because our old system of state-by-state registration rules — some of which appear designed for a mail system via pony express — is outmoded and frankly retains vestiges of our racist past. We need to follow the lead of at least 24 other countries and adopt a system of automatic and permanent voter registration.

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Requiem for a Maverick

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Nov. 21 (Opinion) - They compounded a millionfold Bush's legacy of incompetence by soiling both possible Republican ideological strategies going forward: They killed off Bush-style neoconservatism as well as the more traditional fiscal conservatism McCain himself was once known for by trying to fuse both approaches into one gorgeously incoherent ticket.

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It's Time to Give Voters the Liberalism They Want

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By Thomas Frank - Nov. 18 (Opinion) - But it is also possible that, for once, the public weighed the big issues and gave a clear verdict on the great economic questions of the last few decades. It is likely that we really do want universal health care and some measure of wealth-spreading, and even would like to see it become easier to organize a union in the workplace, however misguided such ideas may seem to the nation's institutions of higher carping.

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