War Games: The Pre-emptive Punch and Fair Play

We have it on very good authority (George W. himself) that, in this post 9/11 world, it is imperative to strike the first blow when we have the slightest notion someone–anyone–out there means to hurt us. Any perceived enemy is fair game; no hard evidence of imminent danger necessary. W. goes with his gut. His primary [...]

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Pride and Outrage: Life Today in the Last, Best Hope of Earth

Nothing moves me more than the story of this country.  
It is the story of liberty, of freedom, of the rights of man. It is the story defined by a long line of underdog rebels, stretching from the Boston Tea Party to the Underground Railroad to the Freedom Riders. In all of these accounts, we find [...]

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Previously apathetic, newly inspired: aka, Obama’s base?

Today, the Washington Post compares commencement addresses given by candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Clinton’s speech outlined a proposal for federal involvement in rebuilding New Orleans, while Obama used the opportunity to offer “words of inspiration and hope” and to encourage the new graduates to get involved in the world around them, decrying the [...]

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Oh, Happy Day–A Mother’s Day Post Mortem

It’s over. Too often, for too many women, that’s the best that can be said for Mother’s Day. Some of them need nothing so much on that second Sunday in May as a T-shirt to wear on Monday:
                                           Don’t even ask.
                             I SURVIVED MOTHER’S DAY
I know a few of them. Some of them [...]

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The Obama Campaign’s Youth Identity-Crisis: The Quest to Integrate Barack Obama’s Unprecedented Youthroots Movement

Cross-posted at Future Majority.
Yes, Barack Obama went through his own troubling youth identity-crisis. He has openly admitted he inhaled; he’s been wasted and hung-over more than once in his youth; and he often found himself feeling lost and uncertain about his identity and his ultimate place within the world. But that’s not the [...]

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New Questions of Faith

While Rudolph Giuliani may claim the political tradition of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, I can’t help but notice how much he actually sounds like Bill Clinton and John Kerry.  
Yesterday, in an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, Giuliani channeled Kerry’s signature tediousness and paradox saying, “I’m very, very passionate about abortion [...]

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A Unique Mother’s Day for Michelle

We have seen more of Michelle Obama lately: numerous profiles in the media, a direct mail appeal, and coverage of her decision to put her career on hold and campaign for her husband full-time. In all accounts, she is described as a willful, intelligent, and compassionate professional who has enjoyed her own degree of success. [...]

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Booker backs Obama

Obama just received a bit of a boost from New Jersey with the support of influential Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker.  Highlights from the New York Times article “Booker to Endorse Obama, Calling Him a ‘Voice for Change’” are noted below:
*Newark is New Jersey’s largest city and some have remarked that this endorsement will bode [...]

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A Choice–Not an Issue (If men got pregnant)

My mother had her own quirky philosophy about pregnancy and childbirth: First you got sick as a yellow dog, then you got fat as a prize sow for six months and then you went into labor–heaving and sweating, suffering the pains of pure-T torment for hours on end. It was not a condition to be [...]

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Mr. Anthony, MySpace and the “My Sandbox” Mentality

What a week. An intra-group internet war over a website.
This thing mushroomed like Dubyah swore Saddam’s WMD would do if we didn’t attack fast–and first. Some Obama supporters threatened to break ranks over it, insisting this proved he was nothing more than “just another politician bullying the little guy.” Those who supported Joe Anthony hurled epithets at those [...]

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The MySpace Dispute

 “HisSpace: Obama seizes backer’s site” – Chicago Tribune (May 3, 2007), Mike Dorning
“The episode pits a feeling of ownership that on-line grass-roots activists may have for content they create in support of a candidate against a political campaign’s desire to keep strict control over the image it projects to voters.” 
 In our technologically advanced era where anyone may create [...]

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Obama Placed Under Secret Service Protection

Article Link
‘Not aware it was based on any threat,’ agency spokesman says
WASHINGTON – The Secret Service said Thursday that Sen. Barack Obama was being placed under their protection, the earliest ever for a presidential candidate.Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff authorized Obama’s protection after consultations with the congressional [...]

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