Monthly Archives: September 2008

Rivalry weekend

The Washington Redskins have defeated the Dallas Cowboys, in Dallas, by a score of 26-24. It’s the Redskins’ third victory in a row under our new coach, Jim Zorn. Until taking over the Redskins, Zorn head never been a head coach or a coordinator in the NFL. This means that, in calling offensive plays for the Redskins, he’s calling them for the first time. Zorn made his name in coaching »

Questioning Republicans’ Patriotism

It happens quite often, actually. Most recently, Nancy Pelosi called House Republicans–the ones who were representing American taxpayers in negotiating the Democrats’ bailout bill–“unpatriotic.” This is because the Republican negotiators failed to attend a meeting of which they were not notified, and to which they were not invited. I think the Democrats are deliberately pushing the envelope as far as they can. They’ve learned that they can get away with »

The Bailout Deal: What Is It?

The outlines of bipartisan legislation to address the current financial crisis have been agreed upon. House Republicans negotiated on behalf of the taxpayers; without their resistance to the original deal that the White House and Congressional Democrats signed off on, the bailout unquestionably would have been worse. The question is, how much did the Republicans succeed in improving the legislation? They had bargaining power only because the Democrats knew the »

Highway 53 revisited

Former Minnesota state senator Doug Johnson was a powerful and long-time DFL (Democratic) legsislator from Cook on Minnesota’s Iron Range. He’s a party-line voter, but he has announced that he is supporting incumbent Minnesota Seantor Norm Coleman against Al Franken this year. The Mesabi Daily News reports: “I’m strongly supporting U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman for re-election, the only Republican I will have voted for in more than 40 years as »

The Verdict on Paul Newman

Paul Mirengoff speaks for me in his remembrance of Paul Newman below. “Cool Hand Luke” seems to me a classic of American filmmaking to which Newman brought the gifts that gave a shabby and cliched existential antihero remarkable depth. The film toys with an audacious religious allegory that is by turns comic and tragic. Newman effortlessly endows Luke Jackson with a charisma that makes it moving and real. Newman was »

Paul Newman, RIP

Paul Newman has died at the age of 83. He is one of a very small group of actors whose presence, at one time, was enough to cause me to see a movie. Here’s a list of Newman’s films. My favorites are Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Long Hot Summer, and Hombre, where Newman plays a blue-eyed Indian. Newman also played pool shark Fast Eddie Felson twice, 25 »

Headwinds

It’s tempting to the think of a presidential debate as a moment of truth. Advertisements may be pure spin and conventions may be staged, but in a debate it’s mostly about which candidate has superior command of the issues, greater debating skill, and the more winning personality. Everyone recognizes, of course, that expectations factor in, and that the candidate with the lead can “win” the debate by not losing it. »

The Washington Post, never more than a “fact check” away from a Democratic talking point

Ed Whelan has the details pertaining to last night’s debate. To comment on this post, go here. »

“The Stench of Police State Tactics”

If Barack Obama becomes President and takes over command of the Justice Department, it is reasonable to expect an assault on the First Amendment the like of which we haven’t seen since the Jefferson administration. Here’s the latest: in Missouri, Obama has enlisted his allies in public office, including St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, to threaten criminal prosecution of any Missouri television station that runs ads about Obama »

Book Banning: How It’s Done

One of the more farcical claims that Democrats have leveled against Governor Sarah Palin is that as mayor, she “banned” books from the Wasilla, Alaska public library. The claim was a complete fabrication, and anyway, a mayor has no power to “ban” a book. Suppressing a work of literature in our time requires something quite different: Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorist command yesterday foiled an alleged plot by Islamic extremists to kill »

A Report From the House

A spokesman for House Republicans wrote this morning: Staff negotiations on the economic stability package lasted until about 2:30 this morning and will resume in about an hour…. It appears that some progress is being made on the inclusion of key Republican principles that include tax payer and home owner protections and adoption of some free market points in the final package. Mr. Blunt, as the Republican’s lead negotiator, [has] »

The Morning After

Both campaigns have furiously spun last night’s debate, and “who won” polls tell us nothing, so far, except about the readership of the web site or publication sponsoring the poll. Clearly neither candidate made a major blunder that has become a news story in itself, so the issue comes down to one of impression: which candidate made more sense and looked more Presidential to the majority of undecided voters. My »

“I agree with Senator McCain that. . .” vs. “What Senator Obama doesn’t seem to understand is. . .”

At the end of the day, those two oft-repeated phrases sum up tonight’s debate. McCain was the teacher; Obama was the promising but somewhat disappointing student — the one who knows lots of facts but ultimtely doesn’t quite get the big picture In reaching this verdict, I don’t want to give the impression did Obama did badly. To the contrary, I think he debated quite well for the most past. »

A Draw, At Best

Tonight’s debate started badly, I thought, as John McCain seemed oddly muted on the mortgage crisis and completely failed to put the blame where it belongs, on the Democrats. For a while I thought McCain wasn’t going to do any better than the Minnesota Twins tonight–they’re losing 8-1 to the Royals. As the evening went on McCain warmed up a bit, but he was still mostly in “bad McCain” mode. »

What Caused the Crisis on Wall Street?

This video does a good job of explaining, in simple and accessible fashion, the origins of the current crisis: Spread it around. Widely. To comment on this post, go here. »

Live-Blog the Debate

If you’re watching the debate tonight, come on over to the Power Line Forum and participate in our group live-blog. Share your reactions with fellow conservatives. Joe Malchow and I will be participating. If you haven’t registered for the Forum, it takes only a few seconds. Go here to read or join in on the group live-blog. JOE updates: Very high traffic, alas, swamped our forum server, and many of »

Miss Wasilla

Andrew Sullivan put up this YouTube video of Sarah Palin competing, I believe, in the Miss Alaska pageant as Miss Wasilla. Sullivan hates Governor Palin, so I assume he thought it was somehow to her discredit. As regular readers know, I have nothing against pageants and think this clip puts Governor Palin in a very good light indeed: By the way, the original video that Andrew put up was taken »