Another disappointing example of "he said/she said" journalism: In a New York Times analysis titled "2 Iraq Views, 2 Campaigns," David E. Sanger says it's difficult to tell whether President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry are talking about the same war or even the same place called "Iraq": At the marble podium of the United Nations, Mr. Bush on Tuesday morning described an Iraq that "has rejoined the community of nations" and is well on the way to... Read more
October 13, 1992, was the day I gave up on mainstream journalism. It was the day I realized that such "journalism," as it is now practiced, is surreal, irrelevant, unconcerned with facts or reality. That was the day when I first recognized the appalling nonsense of "he said/she said" journalism. Others have described and lamented this phenomenon at great length, and with more clarity and insight than I can muster here. But since your first time is always special, let... Read more
The good news, for now, is that TXU Energy, the largest electric utility in Texas, has postponed its plan to use “credit scoring” for setting its rates. Get used to hearing about credit scoring. It’s the wave of the future for utilities, insurance companies — even for phone, cable and Internet providers. The basic idea is to charge different rates to different customers based on customers’ FICO scores. The upshot will be that poor people, young people, the retired and... Read more
"Reagan proved deficits don't matter," Vice President Dick Cheney told then Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill. Cheney realizes, of course, that deficits do matter a great deal in terms of long-term interest rates, economic growth and the tax burden on future generations and on working Americans who must pay to service this growing debt. What he seems to have meant is that deficits don't matter politically. The two-part lesson Cheney seems to have learned here is: 1) if you... Read more
President Bush says he's determined to "stay the course" in Iraq. He has not said what "the course" is. What is the plan? Is there a plan? Plan A for this adventure was a fantasy of rose-petal parades and George Washington Chalabi. Plan B does not seem to exist. No one knows what winning or losing would look like in this war without "major combat operations," but to any honest observer this looks a lot more like losing. On the... Read more
Try to follow the bizarre logic of this statement by The New York Times' David E. Sanger: But both Mr. Bush's speech and Mr. Kerry's retort were notable for what they both omitted: any discussion of a strategy for either defeating the insurgency or disengaging from it. Some of Mr. Kerry's advisers have been urging him to describe a plan in more detail, which they say he hopes to do soon … Kerry's "retort" — which Sanger does not take... Read more
In a place the size of Delaware, Tip O'Neill's dictum that "all politics is local" seems especially true. Small states have certain advantages. Candidates can campaign one-on-one, even for statewide office. Think of the classroom and coffee-shop informality of the New Hampshire primary, only without the hordes of outside media. This manageable scale means that voters have the opportunity to really get to know candidates — and vice versa. Delaware also enjoys a liberating lack of local television. There's only... Read more
Steven Waldman writes in Slate about the idea, expressed by many of President Bush's supporters — including several speakers at the GOP Convention — that George W. Bush became president not because of the will of the sovereign people, but because of the intervention of Almighty God: While Bush's public comments about faith have been mostly within the mainstream tradition of presidential rhetoric, his supporters lately have gone in a less-familiar direction: conveying the idea that God is responsible for... Read more
For about a year I had a day job writing training materials for King of Prussia, Pa.-based Allied Security (now Allied-Barton). I don't breathe well in cubicles and I eventually fled that job, but I liked the company. One of their organizing principles is the idea that high turnover increases costs and decreases quality in the private security industry. The company thus tries to retain and reward good employees by paying a living wage (substantially above the industry average) and... Read more
The British scientist J.B.S. Haldane, the story goes, was asked by a clergyman what we might learn about God from studying the creation. Haldane replied that, "He has an inordinate fondness for beetles." I've always considered that good theology. Dr. Joseph Sheldon would probably disagree. Sheldon, an entomologist who was a professor of biology at my alma mater when I was a student, shares the divine enthusiasm for beetles and doesn't see anything "inordinate" about it. On April 28 of... Read more
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