Progressive Media Advocates
It’s amazing how much mud is flying in this presidential contest – and not just that which is being flung nonstop at Barack Obama. Mudslinging is common during political campaigns, but sometimes that mud isn’t exactly a guided missile. There are moments when it’s splattered about with such zeal that it just gets all over [...]
It would be one thing if John Edwards’ big boo-boo stood alone. But it isn’t working out that way. Enough by now has been written about the bimbo eruption itself, the charismatic married Democrat and the “other woman,” the betrayed wife, the irate and brokenhearted supporters. Hmm… sounds familiar. Didn’t we just go through this [...]
Hey, I realize John McCain has a thing for young blondes, but this is ridiculous. To watch his ad campaign over the past week or so has been painful, whether or not you support Barack Obama. And this week takes the (cheese)cake. Or maybe we just call it cheesy and leave it at that.
By Mary Lyon — Is John McCain in a meltdown? Can this campaign be saved? Can the dots remain unconnected? I don’t know about the first two, other than just observing from the sidelines. But the third one I can take a crack at. I’ll try to be brief. After all, neither you nor I [...]
By Mary Lyon — “Outside of basic intelligence, there is nothing more important to a good political cartoonist than ill will.” –Jules Pfeiffer
I’ve been watching a parade of slapstick worthy of the Keystone Kops lately, but it’s not on Vintage Movie Night — it’s in Washington DC. Hapless doesn’t even begin to describe it.
I guess this is proof, after a fashion, that the war has indeed followed us home. Some of our leading veterans-turned-political-warriors, from John McCain to Wesley Clark and Jim Webb, and even a fresh-outta-mothballs Swiftboater seem to have decided that – never mind “fighting ‘em over there” – the order of the day really is [...]
I’ve heard of rooting for the bad guys, but this is ridiculous. John McCain’s elite advisor Charlie Black opined to Fortune magazine that if there were another terrorist strike against our country in time for the general election, it ‘certainly would be a big advantage‘ for McCain’s campaign. Wow. Nice. Which American city would you [...]
Now we know Barack Obama is the heir. Al Gore has now stepped forward to give his endorsement. It was not, however, quite the triumphant return to the political stage that I had hoped to see from Al Gore. In the interest of full-disclosure, I’m an Obama supporter, but Al Gore had my heart first. [...]
I would never have thought there’d be any greater crimes than those of George W. Bush, nor any villain greater. I’m wrong. And no, it’s not Dick Cheney, either, or anything he’s perpetrated. Nor any of their colleagues. It’s Nancy Pelosi, and her colleagues, and what they seem quite literally hell-bent on doing. Why at [...]
I woke up one morning feeling like I’d awakened in a different country. Sort of. Barack Obama’s passing the numerical finish line was still not quite the end of the Democratic primary season. “She” had yet to concede. It should have been All-Obama-All-the-Time, but it wasn’t. Very well, then. He’s handled this turn of events [...]
Scott McClellan’s new confessional that’s pointed the finger at Bush administration figures in the Valerie Plame scandal reminds me of something my husband got in the mail, in the autumn of 1983. We called it the “I Didn’t Do It” letter. It arrived unexpectedly one afternoon from the offices of gold trader Alan Saxon, the [...]
Yes. I heard it. But Hillary Clinton’s only one of the most recent public figures to bring up that dirty little unmentionable in American political history. She inferred, more than once, that she, in effect, might as well stay in because – well – something could happen (presumably to her Democratic competitor, Barack Obama), maybe [...]
Jackie Kennedy planted that seed, sadly, after the fact, when talking with writer Theodore H. White – in a quest to characterize her late husband’s White House years – casting them in some larger, grander, more transcendent image that would influence our thinking of the all-too-brief Kennedy Administration. Soon enough, the ink dried and the [...]
Ever since this campaign downshifted into high gear, I’ve been wishing it was like some sort of Time Traveler’s Checkerboard. If we could plug some dynamics of this year into 2000, or 2004, imagine how much less glum we’d all be now, as Americans, and how much less grim our circumstances would be. I’ve watched [...]
So let’s see now. We’ve had the flag pins, the “bitter” bit, some moldy-oldie urban guerrilla nobody ever heard of, and now, the rather large, open, and self-involved mouth of Pastor Jeremiah Wright. And THAT is what’s stamped “URGENT” at this late date in presidential primary season. This, while we also have gasoline at four-plus [...]
After watching Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama slug it out and beat each other up, there is one name that shines for me and still gives me hope. It’s neither of the above. It’s Howard Dean. The Pennsylvania primary results make me nervous. I’m in the midst of weighing staying strong for one candidate versus [...]
Petraeus has spoken again. And somehow I feel like I did listening over the years to friends of mine whose dreams were just sure to come true someday, and whose ships were just bound to come in. They were, after all, promised this — over and over and over. For some of them it was [...]
Erich Segal, the author of “Love Story,” once put the phrase “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” into the official collection of favorite American catch-phrases. Up until very recently, we’ve had to suffer under a latter-day perversion of that: “The ‘War on Terror’ means never having to say you’re sorry.” Now, however, comes [...]
This campaign has me feeling as though I’m totally schitzo. I’m a two-headed monster. No – double that. It’s not merely Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama sitting on my shoulders, battling each other for my head, my heart, and my vote. There’s also a second war raging within my own head and heart.
Randy Shaw: Now that cities offer walkable, bicycle-friendly, public transit-available neighborhoods with desirable restaurants and a high quality of life, the poor are being shunted to car-dependent suburban areas in economic decline.
Julie Driscoll: Call me crazy, but I believe firmly that the statutory laws are in place for a reason – to prevent the exploitation of young men and women who don’t have the ability to make informed decisions, who don’t have the ability to “consent.”
Lauren Steiner: Please help us spread the word across Los Angeles! Come with signs that say “Bruce Karsh, please don’t sell the LA Times to the Kochs” and “Bruce Karsh, our democracy is not for sale” We are gathering Thursday, May 23 for a rally and march.
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I Dreamed I Had a Bull’s-Eye on My Back
Dear Messers O’Reilly, Hannity, and Savage, Congratulations. You sure did it this time. You’re the New Century answer to J.D. Salinger, now that an admirer/acolyte of yours has gunned down two people and injured several others in a senseless assault at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. You must be so proud. “Still seized three [...]