Obama Not A Mama Last Night

In the past we’ve discussed linguist George Lakoff’s writings about Republicans being very disciplined about framing themselves as strict fathers of the national family and Democrats as overly permissive mommies. That daddy framing, the theory goes, is appealing to many voters who are looking for a leader to keep them secure and safe, like [...]

The Revised DIO Index

“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.“
G.K. Chesterton

Count me among the Progressives, I guess.
A couple of weeks ago I unveiled the “Days In Office” or DIO Index as [...]

The DIO Index

Before the right gets a little too excited about declaring the Obama administration a failure, I’d like to introduce the “DIO Index” to remind all of us – left, right and center – that it might be just a little premature to call the game yet.
The DIO – Days in Office – is a simple [...]

Running Against Himself

John McCain on George Bush’s failures during his time in office:
Spending, the conduct of the war in Iraq for years, growth in the size of government, larger than any time since the Great Society, laying a $10 trillion debt on future generations of America, owing $500 billion to China, obviously, failure to both enforce and [...]

Tinklenberg for Congress

I just made a donation to Elwyn Tinklenberg.  I invite you to do likewise because it’s time Representative Michele Bachmann is excused from further duty in the U.S. Congress.
Ms. Bachmann, you may recall, was “called by God” to run for Congress and was elected from Minnesota’s 6th District in 2006 in a tough, but not [...]

Worst. President. Ever. The Sequel

Long-time readers may remember that back in August we had a mildly rousing discussion on the question of the George W. Bush presidency and whether or not it was as unremittingly bad as so many of us think. A few of us posted some counterpoints, but there was an overall lack of enthusiasm for the [...]

…And Falls Incomplete Short of the Endzone

That’s the problem with the Hail Mary play; it doesn’t work very often.
Turns out John McCain’s personal laying on of hands was not necessary for Congressional negotiators to reach a deal on the Wall Street bailout plan (which flacks on both sides are trying to reposition as a “financial rescue” package).  According to the Associated [...]

“Old and Scared”

James Carville said a week ago that John McCain’s “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” misstep was the game-changer that inexorably tipped the campaign to Obama.  I think today might end up marking that point instead.
The Republicans – John McCain earlier in the day and George Bush tonight – looked anything but presidential. Both [...]

From Our House to Yours…

To be filed under the category of “unhelpful help” is the endorsement of the McCain/Palin ticket by the current administration.  Both President Bush and Vice President Cheney think the choice of Governor Palin was just great.
These words of support, coming from two guys who collectively got 8 minutes of non-primetime exposure at last week’s GOP [...]

Fourth Quarter Fade

John McCain is no Sarah Palin.
The GOP convention ended on a flat note the line up of speakers – culminating with Senator McCain himself – fell short of last night’s spark and energy.  Even the faithful  seemed a little restless during the fourth evening as the speeches dragged on and particularly when Senator McCain mangled [...]