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Wednesday, Nov 10, 2004
surfer girl
"The campaign experience, she said, was a lot like 'getting tubed.'"
red state herring
"As Jeffrey Rosen (a pro-choice but anti-Roe legal analyst) recently argued in The New Republic (subscription-only), abortion is probably a red herring in the Supreme Court battles; Bush and his people seem most preoccupied with stacking the court with proponents of the “Constitution in Exile” movement, which seeks to return American jurisprudence to pre-New Deal interpretations of the interstate Commerce Clause that hugely limit the scope of federal action and policy. Last year, Michael Scherer wrote a terrific piece for Mother Jones that, in a similar vein, focused on the massive corporate underwriting of most of Bush’s controversial judicial nominations in his first term, and argued that media accounts focusing on, say, William H. Pryor’s religious extremism or Priscilla Owen’s anti-choice advocacy miss the more important story of these judges' radical fealty to corporate interests."
red state rover
"This is what decades of voting for conservative politicians has wrought: nothing.
Or, rather, not nothing, in another sense it has wrought a great deal. Tax breaks, subsidies, and regulatory favors to Republican-friendly corporations and campaign contributors have proliferated faster than gay pride parades and pornographic websites. Back in Washington for his victory lap, Bush claimed a mandate from the voters and proceeded to outline his agenda for his second term -- tax cuts for the wealthy, subsidies for energy companies, tax shelters for the wealthy, a massive giveaway to the insurance industry, and a larger giveaway to the financial services industry. The faith-based agenda of his most loyal flock was left on the cutting room floor. Just as it always has been, and just as it always will be. The powers that be in the Republican Party are, as in Andrew Sullivan's memorable phrase, "closet tolerants," uninterested in the values agenda except as a hateful prop to be deployed at campaign time."
the babel code
good frontline tonight about advertising with douglas rushkoff.