America Votes. I Watch.
No live blogging tonight, as I’ll be attending an election night party organised by the American studies department at Johannes-Gutenberg Universität.
read onIs there a versioning effect in elections?
Over at Crooked Timber, Henry Farrell is wondering why Obama’s lead over McCain is bigger in polls where more left-wing Presidential candidates are included – A puzzle about the polls. Comment #1 by a certain Cryptic Ned is proposing an interesting theory: versioning also works in elections.
read onFrom your tv to your White House.
The NYT’s Brian Stelter looks at some interesting similarities between the last two seasons of “The West Wing” and the current Presidential campaign in the US – Following the Script – Obama, McCain and ‘The West Wing’
read onPaul Krugman agrees…
in the NYTimes after the US House of Representatives voted “no” on the Wall Street bailout plan. He’s right of course, that “flip-flopping” on issues like this in the way it happened isn’t exactly a sign of a well functioning representative democracy. On the other hand, it’s also true that this vote is a sign [...]
read onSarah Palin is simply scary.
You know, back in 2000, I said that Americans were so confident in their way of doing things that they actually believed they could afford someone like the current President to be in charge. Now, a couple of years later, they may no longer be too confident about the situation they find themselves in, militarily, [...]
read onSurfing USA.
Wow. Who would have ever imagined that I would recommend something written by William Safire? Certainly not me.
read onWhen will they ever learn?
Just seen on nytimes.com while checking the latest primary results – Arizona Weighs Bill to Allow Guns on Campuses – Horrified by recent campus shootings, a state lawmaker proposes that allowing adults to carry concealed weapons might deter future incidents.
read onBill Clinton’s libido is responsible for Iraq.
Well, at least in the sense that he caused the Presidency of George W. Bush. And it’s his fault, too, if his wife won’t be nominated or elected president. Sounds farfetched? Well, not to Bob Herbert. NY Times columnist, who argues, apparently seriously, that Bill Clinton’s famous touch has always been poisenous for other Democrats [...]
read onHy-po-cri-sy…
naja, mittlerweile dürfte sich die Schreibweise bei den Republikanern wohl herumgesprochen haben… SPIEGEL ONLINE – Toilettenaffäre: Sex-Skandal zermürbt Republikaner Und ausgerechnet in dieser Woche machen sowohl Jon Stewart als auch Steven Colbert Urlaub…
read onAmerica’s Enabling Act? Catastrophic events and the suspension of the division of power in the USA.
Telepolis (in German) reports about the US “National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive” that was apparently ‘taken out with the trash’ by the White House Communications department on May 9, 2007, and, accordingly, apparently deemed too sensitve to explain even to US Congressmen, has not been approrpriately covered by the media. The directive is [...]
read onMcCain fries Barbara Ann.
And he not only owes an apology to the Beach Boys for his musical stunt – “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” (video on youtube). Did John McCain suddenly decide that American Idol is the more promising competition? Although I suppose most contenders there have understood that doing electoral math usually has a very early [...]
read onPatterns.
The Economist thinks there may be a pattern… “HISTORY can be kinder to presidents than journalists and voters are. Like Truman, Johnson and Nixon before him, George Bush has seen his approval ratings wither under the burden of an unpopular war. But all three of those presidents look better now than they did when they [...]
read onGQ? Why GQ?
Just found this via the truly amazing DIGG Labs flash visualisations of the Diggosphere. The Raw Story reports that – “In the March issue of GQ, Wil S. Hylton argues that Vice President Richard Cheney should be impeached for committing “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Now I suppse there was a small chance for this to [...]
read onOsama BinLaden wins.
We lose. America certainly no longer is the Land Of The Free. It may be telling that the German term “Rechtsstaat” doesn’t really have a useful translation in English, but, alas, at least in the US, there may no longer be the need for one. President Bush now ordered the special tribunals, or military commissions, [...]
read onTry to say it fast: Iranian Uranium…
Update (27/01/2007) Of course, Jon Stewart did not let this go through without commenting. Check the videos on thedailyshow.com. Supposedly, CNN stands for cable NEWS network. That of course is not just a slight euphemism in the case of the video linked to below, which Edward Hugh just sent to the afoe mailing list: Wolf [...]
read onBody Of Secrets.
Given the amount of cognitive dissonance Americans are apparenly willing to tolerate with respect to the actions of the administration they put in office, well, almost twice, I’m not going to bet on it: But the latest revelations in the NSA wiretapping affair might break Bush’s back. This, more than anything before, is bringing impeachment [...]
read onBush in Bild
For those of you, gentle readers, who do not engange in in-depth analysis of Germany’s tabloid newspapers, here’s a transcript of the US President George W. Bush’s interview with Kai Diekmann of BILD – here’s the edited German version published by BILD. They met in the Oval office and discussed, among other issues, the rug-choosing [...]
read onSummit politics
Now that’s what I call a real summit for once: a standoff between two of America’s most talented comedians, George W Bush and Stephen Colbert, at the annual White House Correspondents dinner. Here’s the BBC reporting on Bush’s performance – and here, via throwawayyourtv.com, is Colbert’s performance (25 minutes). Truly a struggle of giants. I [...]
read onRepeat with me: Wa-ter-gate.
Two US state legislatures (Illinois and California) have introduced (though not yet passed) resolutions that would apparently force the US congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against the President Bush based on a little known floor rule (via opednews.com) “Representative Yarbrough stumbled on a little known and never utlitized rule of the US House of Representatives, [...]
read onThe Tides Have Turned.
Anyone remember the controversy a Bush critical statement by the Dixie Chicks created back in 2003? Well, those were days. Three years, a misconceived war, a press secretary, and a watergatesque scandal later, Bush bashing has finally gone mainstream again, even in the US. Still it’s not often as beautifully packaged as P!nk’s “Dear Mr [...]
read onSeriously. It’s worse than I thought.
I’ve always said that it’s important not to underestimate the American President. But I’m not sure that is actually possible. His Q&A session at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies is a box full of candy for Bush comedy of all kinds. Here’s a question by a first year graduate student about the [...]
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