As I wrote a week ago, today is the sixth anniversary of the opening of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay for “enemy combatants.” Not prisoners of war with legal rights accorded the Geneva Conventions, but enemy combatants who exist in some sort of legal black hole. The ACLU has asked that people wear orangeContinue reading “On Guantanamo’s Anniversary”
Category Archives: Politics
On Political Preliminaries
I’ve been working on a politics post. I’ve mentioned it to one or two people. It is… different. Maybe it’s a little geeky. Maybe it’s a little inside baseball. Yet… it’s what I think. More importantly, it’s what I feel. But first, a few preliminaries. It’s no secret that I’m a John Edwards supporter. Indeed,Continue reading “On Political Preliminaries”
On Entering the Dark Side
It’s fair to say that I’m something of a political junkie. Lately I’ve been following conservative blogs. Like Red State, which is essentially the Republican equivalent of DailyKos. Why? you ask. I know what I think about the Republican presidential candidates — Romney’s liberal past will come back to bite him in the ass, Huckabee’sContinue reading “On Entering the Dark Side”
On Protesting Guantanamo
On January 11, 2008 the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay will celebrate an unfortunate anniversary. Its sixth anniversary. The United States will have been holding detainees there, outside of legal guidelines and international law, for longer than the American involvement in, say, World War II. Longer than the Civil War. Longer than most Presidencies. SixContinue reading “On Protesting Guantanamo”
On the Heir to Progressivism
I’m not going to write much on the Iowa Caucus results from last night. The candidate I’m pulling for, the candidate I’ve given money to — former Senator John Edwards — came in second on the Democratic side with thirty percent of the vote, behind Senator Barack Obama (with 37 percent) and ahead of SenatorContinue reading “On the Heir to Progressivism”
On a Reason to Vote
I found myself talking with an acquaintance last night about, naturally, the presidential primary process. I’d heard that he was working as a volunteer for Mitt Romney’s campaign (which, as I’ve mentioned before, I won’t be voting for, though that would only come into play in the general election), and I wanted to know howContinue reading “On a Reason to Vote”
On John Edwards, Viking Warrior
This morning’s Washington Post ran some excerpts from Dana Milbank’s new book, Homo Politicus: The Strange and Scary Tribes That Run Our Government. If the government is a primitive tribe — and yes, there’s some primal sociology at play in politics — then how do candidates stack up in a primitive hierarchy? (Or for theContinue reading “On John Edwards, Viking Warrior”
On Mitt Romney’s Anti-Endorsement
Newspapers have been endorsing candidates at all levels of the political process for years. People running for President, for instance, covet the endorsements of newspapers, both in the general election and the primaries. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen anything quite like this, before, though. The Concord Monitor, in Concord, New Hampshire, ran anContinue reading “On Mitt Romney’s Anti-Endorsement”
On Impeaching Dick Cheney
In early November the House of Representatives voted, with bipartisan support, a bill of Impeachment sponsored by Dennis Kucinich to the House Judiciary Committee. Now, we can question why the bill had bipartisan support. A cynic might say the Republicans were trying to embarrass the Democratic leadership of the House. An optimist might think thatContinue reading “On Impeaching Dick Cheney”
On Olbermann’s Take on Iran
I wrote yesterday about the release of the NIE on Iran and the President’s press conference Tuesday morning. Neither event, truthfully, was particularly pleasant. Neither has had much play in the press, that I’ve seen. (Blogosphere, yes. Media, no.) Naturally, I wondered what Keith Olbermann would make of the release of the NIE and theContinue reading “On Olbermann’s Take on Iran”