Some republicans object to using the term nuclear option to describe their plan to end filibusters on the Senate floor during confirmation hearings, but the image of total war is a fitting one for the possible direction of the “upper chamber” these days. The 11th-hour compromise between the squishes in both parties will only serve...
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November 1, 2004July 26, 2022View
Walking the Neocon Plank
For a political reporter looking for a good story, a national convention has become a pretty barren field. Journalists typically just enjoy the expense account, skip most of the scripted, focus-grouped speeches, and listen instead to Jack Germond or David Broder reminisce about the Taft-Eisenhower floor fight of 1952 or the Chicago riots of 1968. ...
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January 1, 2004June 22, 2022The Best Revenge
Smoke-easy
STOP SMOKING FAST read the advertisement on the subway car, and it is probably good advice for people such as my father, who continues to smoke even after having had two stents inserted into his badly clogged arteries. I wanted the opposite, however: I wanted to start smoking fast. There are no 12-step programs for...
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October 1, 2002April 21, 2022Correspondence
Que Bueno?
“Whether or not [sic] it is advisable to completely [sic] shut the door on native-language instruction is a decision that has to be made at the point of instruction,” U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige said on a recent trip to Denver, where he stopped to promote President George W. Bush’s educational-reform agenda. Colorado voters...