Submitted to a Candid World

It was Obama’s until he opened the door to the “meeting without preconditions” debate: while Obama’s position is defensible, it’s too nuanced for debate airtime… Primary violation of Rove’s Law. Obama needed to shout McCain down and get his points in: he didn’t. Obama’s working his way back up now, but that was a bad [...]

[Read more →]

Albeit incoherently, Palin has continued to falsely link the Iraq War to the 9/11 hijackers. This is a talking point abandoned even by Dick Cheney. As her favorability ratings plummet, and her bosses attempt to defray or cancel altogether her debate with Joe Biden, the right has renewed its concerns about the Alaska Governor, even [...]

[Read more →]

Signs point to no.
Early this week John McCain (”Slick Jimmy”) first made headlines by attempting to reschedule the first presidential debate and promising to suspend his campaign (rallies, ads, and everything), and then raised eyebrows by proceeding with scheduled events. By all accounts, the ads continued to run in swing states, McCain kept to his [...]

[Read more →]

Or, in praise of the Countermajoritarian Constitution, the week after Constitution Day.
Democracy - “the worst form of government, except all the others that’ve been tried” - does not lack for its faults.
First, it is prone to disintegration: Algeria starkly presents the possibility that a duly elected legislative body might vote to implement a monarchy. And, [...]

[Read more →]

I wrote yesterday that a presidential debate, more than any other political event, is a game of expectations. While no-one can legitimately doubt that McCain’s “hold everything! Washington needs me!” moment was a gimmick, perhaps it was more a way of lowering expectations than anything. Should the debate go forward, he’s crunched his prep time [...]

[Read more →]