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Edited by Peter Davison
$39.95
By Oliver Sacks
$26.95
$23
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Let’s ask the hard question about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright: Is he as far outside the African-American mainstream as many of us would like to think?
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thewashingtonnote.com
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Five years, nearly 4,000 dead Americans, millions of killed or displaced Iraqi civilians and $500 billion later, George W. Bush still thinks the Iraq war was a good move. In remarks leaked on the eve of his speech marking the anniversary of the war, the president says the high costs “are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq.”
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By Eugene Robinson — Barack Obama tells the columnist why he chose to ignore the collective political wisdom and confront the issue of race head-on. Having survived the encounter, his speech on the subject could change the way Americans understand one another.
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As the controversy over remarks by his former pastor continues to get play in the media, Barack Obama escalated the damage control by giving a major speech on the subject of race and politics. His ability to distill the conflict and character of America into moving rhetoric is as impressive as ever, but will it be enough to weather this storm?
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By Eugene Robinson — With arithmetic on his side, the Illinois senator still should be heavily favored to win the nomination. But he does have a problem: The world-class orator, attacked by opponents for being all talk and no walk, urgently needs to come up with a new speech.
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By Ellen Goodman — In the end, the most memorable line of the primary season may belong to Bill Clinton: “I’ve been waiting all my life to vote for an African-American president. I’ve been waiting all my life to vote for a woman for president. ... I feel like God is playing games with our heads and our hearts.”
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By Amy Goodman — While the Iraq war is off the front pages, and Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama embark on what may well be a scorched-earth primary battle against each other, let’s keep our eye on where the real scorched earth lies: who profits and who dies.
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AP photo / Rick Bowmer
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Perhaps responding to accusations made by pundits and politicians that Barack Obama has been given kid-glove treatment by the media, reporters at a San Antonio, Texas, press conference made sure they didn’t invite similar criticism Monday night.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Barack Obama’s critics bear a remarkable resemblance to the liberals who labored mightily to dismiss Ronald Reagan in 1980.
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factcheck.org
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Hillary Clinton was so irked by a couple of Barack Obama campaign mailers that a few days ago she publicly scolded him and said “every Democrat should be outraged.” Clinton herself has been accused of sending misleading mailers to voters, including one that went out shortly after her now infamous “shame on you” news conference. For inundated Ohioans, it’s a question of whom to trust. Updated.
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By Ellen Goodman — On Tuesday, I got a sarcastic e-mail from a Hillary supporter. She forwarded a crack made by Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s media man, about Obama. “Senator Clinton,” he scoffed, “is not running on the strength of her rhetoric.” To which my friend added: “Unfortunately.”
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By Marie Cocco — As they prepare to vote, thousands of Virginia Democrats are struggling to decide between two able candidates. Many of those will not make that decision until they have ballots in their hands.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The Democrats’ hopes of regaining the White House hinge on how the party proceeds in the coming weeks and months. If momentum or civility reigns, they’ve got a shot. But if back-room dealing and cheating prevail, don’t hold your breath.
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bfs-zh.ch
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Vladimir Putin isn’t taking the expansion of NATO and a planned missile shield lightly. The Russian president told his people: “It is already clear that a new phase in the arms race is unfolding in the world. ... It is not our fault, because we did not start it.” Flush with oil money, Russia is planning to beef up and flaunt its military capabilities in response.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Democrats are divided this year not by the issues but by a feeling and a theory. This helps explain why the preferences of voters in the Democratic presidential primaries so far have gyrated so wildly.
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Pop star and producer will.i.am and director Jesse Dylan (son of Bob) put together this independent, star-filled tribute to Barack Obama’s New Hampshire concession speech. Whether it’s inspirational or just cheesy is up to you, but we’ve got nothing bad to say about Herbie Hancock on the piano.
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By Marie Cocco — Bush may be a lame duck, but he’s also a president who has shown an unparalleled capacity to blow it.
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thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com
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Because he lacks a legacy—at least the good kind—no one expected much from President Bush’s final State of the Union address, which is probably why Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama managed to steal the spotlight. The Internet is buzzing over Monday’s sideshow.
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George W. Bush, the president who lied America into a war that will end up costing trillions of dollars, scolded the Democratic-controlled Congress in his final State of the Union address on Monday for undermining “the people’s trust in their government” with too many pet projects. Now that’s chutzpah, coming from a man who never met a spending bill he didn’t like unless it had to do with stem cells and sick children.
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Sometimes it’s useful to let a story’s own lead speak for itself. Take, for example, the doozy of a question that opens Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s New York Times article about Bush’s economic focus in Monday’s State of the Union address: “Will George W. Bush be remembered as the president who lost the economy while trying to win a war?”
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By Andy Borowitz — After equating homosexuality with bestiality, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was attacked by a gay tiger.
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The full effect of Barack Obama’s transcendent victory speech in South Carolina has yet to be felt, but his historically stirring and inspirational words have already generated praise from around the country and even across the political aisle. Whether this speech proves to be the turning point in this election, we don’t know. What we do know is that Obama has made Hillary Clinton’s contention that words don’t matter seem so very small and suspect.
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By Eugene Robinson — Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys took the stage at a rally for John Edwards in South Carolina on Wednesday, and out of a clear sky it started raining metaphors.
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The campaign trail takes its toll on even the most robust constitution, as evidenced by this footage of Bill Clinton nodding off during a Martin Luther King Day speech.
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Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama honored the late, great Martin Luther King Jr. on Sunday with a couple of refreshingly fresh speeches. Be sure to give them a listen. There are some truly wonderful moments of rhetorical homage to one of the great orators of all time.
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AP photo / Jim Cole
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“I found my own voice,” Hillary Clinton said in her New Hampshire victory speech, admitting to more than just a bumpy campaign. Instead, she appeared to be pointing at the stilted rhetoric and focus-grouping that have plagued her run for president. With Iowa and New Hampshire behind her, the senator’s campaign promise, it seems, is to speak from the heart.
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The media may be falling under the sway of Barack Obama, but Hillary Clinton is fed up with the idea that his campaign is somehow historic, and she’s had more than enough of those comparisons to JFK and Martin Luther King Jr. just “because they gave great speeches.”
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Hillary Clinton may have unintentionally written the obituary for the Iowa and New Hampshire phase of her presidential campaign, and perhaps her candidacy, when she told voters on Sunday: “You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose.”
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In case you were wondering how the candidates felt about the results of the Iowa caucuses, here are Barack Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee, in their own words.
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By Marie Cocco — If we seemed doomed to refight the battles from eight years ago, perhaps it’s because Al Gore’s warnings about a Bush presidency turned out to be so prescient.
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By Ellen Goodman — Since this is the list-making time of year, allow me to add a tiny trophy to Al Gore’s very full shelf: the prize for the most elegant speech of 2007.
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By Eugene Robinson — Hillary Clinton tells audiences that having lived in the White House for eight eventful years, she’s eager to take charge as president on “day one.” Apparently, though, so is Bill.
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dallasnews.com
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By The Rev. Madison Shockley — In the first of a new Truthdig series on religion and politics, the Rev. Madison Shockley analyzes Mitt Romney’s recent landmark speech and finds that America’s most famous Mormon is trying to have it both ways.
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motherjones.com
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The Huckabee campaign has refused to give the media much more than scraps of the candidate’s religious speeches, leaving his 12 years as a pastor relatively shrouded in mystery. We already know he doesn’t believe in evolution, thought at one time that AIDS patients should be quarantined and isn’t ashamed “to let you know that I believe Adam and Eve were real people,” so what is he hiding?
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Romney’s “religion speech” was touched by brilliance, but it turned off onto a wrong road. Parts of it were frustrating and transparently political, the words of a man with his eye on a prize.
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Peter Montgomery —
The former Massachusetts governor must stop the advance of presidential rival and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee, but he has to tread a careful line in addressing religious issues.
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theithacajournal.com
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Some 150 students donned hoods and turned their backs in silent protest of former Attorney General John Ashcroft at Cornell University on Thursday. Cornell law student and protest co-planner Michael Siegel told Truthdig the demonstrators were meant to represent “the detainees who were arrested and imprisoned without due process under Ashcroft’s leadership.”
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The horse-race coverage of the campaign mostly missed this absolute gem of a speech from Barack Obama, who has scratched and clawed his way to a virtual tie with Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in Iowa.
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By Marie Cocco — In the beginning—back when most Americans believed Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, when Rumsfeld was known for his quick verbal jabs and not the quagmire in Iraq, and when Bush still could hope to be revered as a great wartime president—the women of Code Pink would stand quietly in front of the White House and hope someone would take their fliers.
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The “Daily Show” host examines the president’s bizarre speaking style and the rhetorical train wreck that stems from his love affair with self-narration.
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By Will Durst — After all the brouhaha in New York this week, this seems like a good time to have us a little chat about free speech. Not restricted free speech. Not partial free speech. Not pseudo-, semi-, counterfeit, limited free speech. Not free speech on Wednesdays between 2 and 3 p.m. EDT.
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nytimes.com
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Leave it to George W. Bush to disappoint already low expectations. The president unveiled his dud of a plan to combat the climate crisis at a highly publicized meeting Friday of the world’s 16 biggest polluters.
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By Joe Conason — The loud, angry and sterile debate over the Iranian president’s visit to Columbia University raises a more serious problem that has long confounded American policymakers: How to cope with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s real masters, the corrupt regime of mullahs who determine both foreign and domestic policy in Iran.
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The Largest Minority has put together a collection of video clips from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia University on Monday, complete with Columbia President Lee Bollinger’s controversial introductory remarks.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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President Bush has weighed in on the massive protests in Burma (Myanmar), saying he will boost sanctions against the country’s abusive military government. Meanwhile, thousands of Buddhist monks have defied government warnings and continue to demonstrate.
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By Will Durst — Political comedian Will Durst provides the answers to some frequently asked (and vexing) questions about Gen. David Petraeus’ testimony.
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File this one under “Good Uses of Journalistic Resources”: The Associated Press marshaled its fact-checking talents and expertise to dissect President Bush’s speech on Thursday, issuing corrections to some of Bush’s claims in this handy point-by-point analysis.
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Terracide and the Terrarists: Destroying the Planet for Record Profits
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