People are buzzing belatedly about President Bush’s use of the word “articulate” in describing Sen. Barack Obama last week — a day after Sen. Joe Biden also had used the word, though he understandably got more attention for “clean.” This New York Times piece explains that “when whites use the word in reference to blacks, it often carries a subtext of amazement, even bewilderment.” Author Lynette Clemetson went on: “Such a subtext is inherently offensive because it suggests that the recipient of the ‘compliment’ is notably different from other black people.”
Her advice to well-meaning whites: “Do not use it as the primary attribute of note for a black person if you would not use it for a similarly talented, skilled or eloquent white person.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
What Rush Limbaugh said on the radio Monday about Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, presidential wannabe: “Look, Brownback is out there on the wrong side of the anti-war resolution. He’s doing some things here that have me scratching my head. He’s not a thoroughbred conservative, like I think he once was.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
President Bush’s surge plan “may well be repeating the error of undercommitment, which doomed Bush’s Iraq venture in the first place,” wrote Mortimer B. Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report. And if the surge fails, Zuckerman predicted, “it will destroy the Republicans’ reputation on national security for at least a generation.” But he said: “Advocates of a ‘phased’ withdrawal of our troops must reckon with the certainty of a serial disaster: a full-blown civil war spreading a contagion of violence across the region, with Iran virtually uncontainable. Our enemies, as the president said, would emerge with new safe havens, new recruits, and new resources.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer disagrees with those — such as Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria — who say that America gave Iraqis a civil war.
He wrote: “We gave them a civil war? Why? Because we failed to prevent it? Do the police in America have on their hands the blood of the 16,000 murders they failed to prevent last year?”
After recounting some of the sacrifices of American soldiers and other efforts to prevent civil strife and seek reconciliation, he concluded:
“We have made a lot of mistakes in Iraq. But when Arabs kill Arabs and Shiites kill Shiites and Sunnis kill all in a spasm of violence that is blind and furious and has roots in hatreds born long before America was even a republic, to place the blame on the one player, the one country, the one military that has done more than any other to try to separate the combatants and bring conciliation is simply perverse.
“It infantilizes Arabs. It demonizes Americans. It willfully overlooks the plainest of facts: Iraq is their country. We midwifed their freedom. They chose civil war.”
What do you bloggers think?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
A few words from the Democratic presidential candidate cattle call, also known as the Democratic National Committee winter meeting:
Wesley Clark’s button said, “All Patriot. No Act.”
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd said: “Bipartisanship to me does not mean getting Democrats to agree with Republican principles. It means getting Republicans to agree to Democratic principles.”
Former Sen. John Edwards: “Brothers and sisters, in times like these, we don’t need to redefine the Democratic Party. We need to reclaim the Democratic Party.”
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson: “Anyone of these candidates would be good in the White House. As my vice president.”
Delaware Sen. Joe Biden: “Well, how was your week?”
And Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (not a presidential candidate — yet) said of Democratic gains in her GOP state in 2006: “Kansas once again is open for business.” She gave part of the credit to DNC chairman Howard Dean and his 50-state strategy. “It really is paying off,” she said.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
In a time of terrorism, Cartoon Network should have thought twice about promoting “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” by placing several dozen “blinking electronic signs with a boxy cartoon character giving an obscene hand gesture” around the Boston area. But it’s also hard to understand how Boston authorities could mistake the LEDs for anything dangerous, especially when they caused no concern in nine other cities. And even figuring in the $2 million compensation cost announced Monday, Turner Broadcasting Systems sure got its money’s worth in publicity.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
