Musts: Who’s Your Daddy, Feelings, Rewriting History, and more

Posted by Liberadio(!) on July 12, 2007 under Uncategorized |

10 Jul 2007
“Who’s Your Daddy?,” by Paul Waldman (TomPaine.com)
Waldman, author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Can Learn From Conservative Success uses Fred Thompson’s rapid ascent in the polls to once again warn Democrats to pay attention to image and identity.

“Counseling Democrats to Go for the Gut,” By Patricia Cohen (NY Times)
Just in case you missed Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant and Waldmans’ Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Can Learn From Conservative Success, Cohen reports on the latest book warning Democrats to focus on evoking images and feelings from the electorate, Emory University Psychology Professor Drew Westen’s, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.

“Bush’s Pakistan Paradox,” By Robert Scheer (Truthdig.com)
Oh what we’ll do, or not do, to not offend our friends in Pakistan. Let the double standards soar!

“Fixing Health Care: Not Government vs. Market,” By Dean Baker (truthout.org)
“With “SiCKO” rallying popular support for universal health care coverage, defenders of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries are shifting into high gear with their scare tactics. The key to their efforts is to frighten people about the prospect of the government managing their health care.”

11 July 2007
“Surgeon General Sees 4-Year Term as Compromised,” By Gardiner Harris (NY Times)
“Ex-surgeon general faults White House,” by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar (LA Times)
“Richard Carmona says the administration ’simply buried’ his scientific data on such issues as stem cell research and teen pregnancy” and “was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches.”

August 2007
“The History Boys,” By David Halberstam (Vanity Fair)
“In the twilight of his presidency, George W. Bush and his inner circle have been feeding the press with historical parallels: he is Harry Truman—unpopular, besieged, yet ultimately to be vindicated—while Iraq under Saddam was Europe held by Hitler. To a serious student of the past, that’s preposterous. Writing just before his untimely death, David Halberstam asserts that Bush’s “history,” like his war, is based on wishful thinking, arrogance, and a total disdain for the facts.”