Glenn Beck’s people have it totally wrong
More than a century ago, William Jennings Bryan’s populists saw government as the protector of the little guy. Today, Glenn Beck and his followers see government as the peoples’ oppressor.
Bryan’s people got it right. Becks’ don’t.
GOVERNMENT PROTECTS THE LITTLE GUY
Tags: conservatives, Democrats, Glenn Beck, politics, populists, Republicans, Wall Street, Washington
The ‘Arab Street’ meets the ‘American Street’
The neocon enterprise of changing other cultures by force seems to have hit a dead-end alley with the passions unleashed against a proposed Islamic center near ground zero.
THE MOSQUE AND THE AMERICAN STREET
Tags: conservatives, culture, terrorism
Democrats pay price for health-care circus
Democrats would be so much better off today had they given up their fruitless quest for bipartisanship last year and nailed down the health-care reforms two months earlier.
DEMOCRATS MADE THEIR OWN LUMPY BED
Tags: Democrats, health care, politics, Republicans, Washington
The economy without government
Two leading economist put out a study describing what might have happened had the government not taken extraordinary actions following the financial meltdown.
My take in
WASHINGTON SAVED OUR ECONOMIC HIDE
Tags: economy, politics, Republicans, Washington
Weighty Canada — economic and otherwise
Marketwatch’s Canada expert, Bill Mann, makes note of my recent column praising Canada’s bank regulation as a boon to its economy.
Tags: banks, Canada, economy, health care, Washington
Canada’s balmy economy
Has anyone noticed that smart government regulations can help the economy? It’s all there to see in Canada.
REGULATION MADE CANADA FAT AND HAPPY
Tags: Canada, economy, politics, right wing, Washington
John Kerry, his yacht, and his taxes
John Kerry’s example offers several lessons for makers of tax policy — though not the ones Republicans intended.
REPUBLICANS OVERBOARD ON YACHTSMAN KERRY
Tags: Democrats, Massachusetts, Republicans, Rhode Island
Why would ethics trials hurt Democrats?
I can’t see it. If Nancy Pelosi is backing the ethics investigations of two high- profile Democrats, shouldn’t that be a badge of honor for her party?
ETHICS TRIALS COULD HELP, NOT HURT, DEMOCRATS
Tags: California, Democrats, ethics, House, Nancy Pelosi, Republicans, Senate
The real immigration story
The drama in Arizona belies the real action on the immigration front. The Obama administration is deporting record numbers of illegal aliens and going after employers of them with unprecedented vigor. This is
Tags: Arizona, immigration, Latinos, Obama
Liberals: Stop waving fingers at right-wing gargoyles
I have a dear conservative friend with whom I have lively conversations. He’s well-read (informed) and listens to others. But every now and then, I get a call from him in which his voice is raised to a near-hysterical pitch, and I can hear Fox News droning in the background. I give him my ground rule: Never call me until Fox has been turned off for at least 30 minutes.
Now, I can understand Dana Milbank’s concern that the gargoyles of the right are sending their paranoids off on violent rampages. But that column, following E.J. Dionne’s on the smearing of Shirley Sherrod, points to an unfortunate trend in which some liberal pundits seem to be regarding the right-wing hustlers as serious news people. (Dionne does makes excellent points on the “respectable media’s” timidity in handling the lies.)
I occasionally watch Fox to check in on the carnival but never worry excessively about its power. Sure it attracts many gawkers. So do car wrecks. Recall that Fox was in full flower in November 2008, when the American people elected a Democratic House, Democratic Senate and Democratic president.
As for the Sherrod case, I don’t blame Andrew Breitbart. He is what he is — a publicity hound dishing right-wing fantasy for money and fame. Discussing his “journalistic standards” is ludicrous.
Waving fingers at Glenn Beck and his like is pointless. Organizing a boycott of their advertisers would be a far more effective approach. Note what happened to Don Imus when he shot his mouth off in a beyond-the-pale way.
Blame for the Sherrod scandal belongs strictly on the shoulders of the Obama administration. That its smart boys bought into that propaganda without triple-checking the facts is what scares me.
BTW, if some nutbag goes off and kills a bunch of people on the basis of a report on Fox, that’s going to be very bad politically for the right wing. Americans, whatever their politics, are generally decent people.
Tags: conservatives, liberals, media, politics
