Tag: president

Open the door to the Oval office

David Kurtz, writing on the blog Talking Points Memo, offers an essential rationale for curtailing the use of executive privilege by presidents and opening the executive branch to greater scrutiny.

It boils down to this basic argument:

There is, it seems to me, only one interest at stake: the public interest. The President is supposed to be acting in the public interest, and so are his advisers. The public disclosure of internal White House deliberations allows the public to hold the President and his advisers accountable to the public interest. If there is a legitimate competing interest here, I don’t see it.

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Pundits are talking to wrong Americans about Libby


Just so we’re clear on this: The pundits believe the American people support the Libby commutation. Isn’t that what I keep hearing the talking heads say?

I mean, this Gallup poll (graphic from Gallup) seems to indicate a general dissatisfaction with the president’s action, if not outright anger.

Exactly which Americans are they talking to? I know: Other pundits.

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Troubling responses

The disconnect in these responses is rather troubling. (As is the fact that we still feel we need to ask this question.)

Although 92 percent of the NEWSWEEK Poll’s respondents claim they would vote for a black candidate (up from 83 percent in 1991), only 59 percent believe the country is actually ready for an African-American president (an improvement over 37 percent in a 2000 CBS News poll). Similarly, 86 percent of voters say they would vote for a female commander in chief, but only 58 percent believe the country is ready for one (up from 40 percent in a 1996 CBS poll).

So Americans say they would vote for a black or woman candidate, but they don’t think their neighbors would. It leaves me wondering if this is really just code, a way for poll respondents to dismiss a black or woman candidate without having to take responsibility. Or am I reading too much into it?

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
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Constitutional crisis

The U.S. Constitution is in crisis. The president has placed himself and his closest advisors above the law, raising partisanship to a new level and allowing the White House to function as a small-time mafia family in the process.

Read this and this and this and this. (Only a Washington insider would make the case that Michael Kinsley makes today, shifting the discussion back from perjury and cover-up to a culture of leaks, finding a way to equate Clinton’s sex life with the vengeful activity of an administration run amok and the president’s willingness to hold his cronies to a separate standard than the rest of America and the world.)

I think he needs to take Keith Olbermann’s advice and resign.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog

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