Clarke Phrenology

The thing that cracks me up about Clarke is his "perception" of everything. He "felt" like the President was pressuring him... He perceived that Condie Rice didn't know anything about Al Quaeda. Hopefully his work was done with a more exact science... say phrenology. See below:

   
The world according to Richard Clarke, Phrenologist

Washington DC - Where the money comes from
Great map of the DC area showing presidential contributions by geographical location. Fundrace.org is a fantastic site to get a grip on campaign money perspectives.

Type in your zipcode below and see who is contributing to who around your neighborhood:

Poker-faced Whitehouse set to unleash Condi?

The Bush Whitehouse wasn't born yesterday. As John Podhoretz's book points out, they play poker well. Believe me when I say, they knew the controversy that Condi would evoke if she didn't submit public ally. My guess is they will make something public of her testimony (Drudge is reporting this right now)... to get a little publicity on her words... then, she'll slam dunk the briefing and score some big points.

Crooked Timber on Political Intervention - Assumptions Galore

Crooked Timber: Comment on Juan non-Volokh (with minor editorial changes): "There are two problems with your argument.

One is an assumption: the unspoken premise of your argument is that something has to be done. You fail to recognize that leaving something to its own devices (in effect “doing nothing� from a political point) is the equivilent of the market approach.

The other problem is evidence. Please cite me some type of evidence to support your argument. Theory is king of the empty thoughts otherwise.

Here are some actual evidentiary examples as noted by Thomas Sowell in his book “Vision of the Anointed�. In all three examples, “market forces� were at play until a government program was initiated.

1) Sex Education - it was presumed that incorporating sex education in public schools would reduce out-of-wedlock births and impede the spread of veneral diseases. Sowell cites statistics indicating that both “crises� were non-existent. Both sets of numbers (births and disease) were on the decline. 30 years after the initiation of the programs, these statistics rose dramatically. The ends certainly did not justify the means.

2) War on poverty - geared particularly to minorities, this program became the focal point of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations to alleviate government dependency. Again, statistics indicate that dependency was on the decline. Where did we end up 20 years after? Program failed.

3) Crime - perceived problem in murder and crime led to government programs of rehabilitation. Despite the fact that the murder rate in 1960 was half of what it was in 1934. Result: Murder rate doubled by 1974
Returning to the main premise of my argument: why must we assume that “something must be done�. For example: NEWSFLASH: median incomes in the city of Stanford, CA are below the poverty "

AP Shame

Yahoo! News - Bush Casts Kerry As Tax Raiser in TV Ad:

Here is a critique that I sent to Ron Fournier:

Ron,

Your approach to Bush's new ad was a bit presumptive and slanted don't you think. Below is a short critique of your article:

Paragraph 1: You start out with an assumptive and subjective device in the first sentence: "President Bush, fearing political backlash over the loss of U.S. jobs..." It seems to me that you have claimed some kind of divination to arrive at this interpretation. With this comment you have painted the ad as decisively defensive in nature. Why not remove the comment and state: "President Bush casts Democratic rival John Kerry as a tax-raising threat to the American economy in a new television commercial airing Thursday."?

Paragraph 3: You explicate the ad very well but add another aside out of the blue: "It also says he would raise taxes by $900 billion, a charge denied by Kerry's campaign." Why the comment here. Could you not state the content of the ad and offer the other side's views at a later point? You take great pains later in the article to point out the Kerry campaign's rebuttal, why not include it there?

Paragraph 14: Here is the peak of your bias. I'm uncertain how you defend this paragraph, it speaks for itself: "Kerry has never proposed a $900 billion tax increase, as the ad suggests. The Bush administration, which has overseen the loss of government surpluses and an explosion of deficits, comes up with the $900 billion figure by calculating the cost of Kerry's programs. Kerry left himself open to criticism by failing to detail the cost of his promises." Again, the second sentence commented aside between commas is pure biased rancor on your part.

Paragraphs 15 and 16 are pure propaganda. Is this a reporting piece or your candid support for the Kerry campaign?

Other noted biases in this article:

"The ad addresses a major vulnerability for Bush. A recent AP poll showed that the economy is the most important issue to voters, and 53 percent of them believe Kerry is best suited to create jobs" See paragraph 1 explanation.

Thanks for your attention
Justin Hart