Barack Obama is promising Americans another faith-based presidency but asking us to trust him not to pervert it, as George W. Bush did, “to promote partisan interests.”

That may take a leap of faith on the part of those drawn to Obama’s new politics as an antidote to eight years of seeing Bush-Rove, to use a JFK era phrase, “pour God over everything like ketchup.”

In his speech this week, Obama was tightrope-walking between his understanding of church-state separation, “as someone who used to teach constitutional law,” and the yearnings of those “bitter” Americans who “cling to religion” as a result of their frustrations.

Declaring that “the challenges we face today–from saving our planet to ending poverty–are simply too big for government to solve alone,” Obama on-the-other-handed, “I’m not saying that faith-based groups are an alternative to government or secular nonprofits. And I’m not saying that they’re somehow better at lifting people up. ”

Read the rest of this entry.

Yet another point in Obama’s favor: the Christian Conservatives and evangelicals have decided that McCain is, after all, God’s candidate. That is to say, while many of them feel that McCain was most definitely not God’s first choice, God most definitely prefers him to Barack Obama.

So even though they — meaning the lead mouthpieces of the Christian Right — said they would never, ever do it, Senator McBack ‘n Fill carefully repudiated his every principled stand during the primaries. Besides: he’s incontrovertibly not Obama. They’ve evidently decided on these grounds that they have to support him for not being Obama, whether they like it or not. I get the impression that they don’t much, even now, but are trying to make the best of him. That’s so sweet.

But if I didn’t already know how I am going to vote, I’d take their decision to unite behind McCain as a sign. As a small-C christian small-L liberal of the Quaker, or Friendly, Persuasion — if of any persuasion — I view the stance of the opposite sort of Christian as a fairly reliable indicator of on which side of the line I should not plant my banner.

They may mean well. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. But I cannot agree with their objectives.

Read the rest of this entry »

I guess that makes us a niche read here at TMV!

Henry Farrell comments on a new paper he, Eric Lawrence, and John Sides just finished (available at SSRN — they’d like you to download from there if you’re signed up, pdf here if not):

First – blog readers seem to exhibit strong homophily. That is to say, they overwhelmingly choose blogs that are written by people who are roughly in accordance with their political views. Left wingers read left wing blogs, right wingers read right wing blogs, and very few people read both left wing and right wing blogs. Those few people who read both left wing and right wing blogs are considerably more likely to be left wing themselves; interpret this as you like. Furthermore, blog readers are politically very polarized. They tend to clump around either the ‘strong liberal’ or the ‘strong conservative’ pole; there aren’t many blog readers in the center. This contrasts with consumers of various TV news channels, as the figure below illustrates. All of this suggests that blog readership is unlikely to be associated with the kinds of deliberative exchange between different points of view that some political theorists would like to see.

Second – blog readers are much more likely than non blog readers to engage in politics (through voting, giving money to candidates etc). Not only that, but left wing blog readers are significantly more likely than right wing blog readers to participate in politics. You could interpret this as evidence of more general depression among conservatives etc, but our best guess is that this is in large part the result of the netroots effect. Having a strong political movement which is pushing readers to make donations etc is likely to have real consequences. Obviously, we would like to have more data before we could make a really good case that our guess is correct.

John Sides has more here. Henry talked with Cass Sunstein (who he called “pretty skeptical about the virtues of Internet communication”) on the topic back in March. As did Eugene Volokh in May. Until this study I thought Volokh won the day.

I still will want to watch things evolve moving forward… btw, be sure to read the comments on the post, too.

Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.

Glenn Greenwald has administered a swift and deadly kick to Olbermann’s credibility on the issue and to any lingering hope that Olbermann might recover sufficient detachment to be considered a reliable commenter on any issue relating to his Hero, Barack Obama.

Now that Obama has made his position on FISA crystal clear, Olbermann has apparently decided how he is going to spin the issue:  by being as disingenuous as Obama man.  When W was fighting for FISA, Olbermann called it "an ex post facto law, which would clear the phone giants from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive and blatant collaboration with [Bush’s] illegal and unjustified spying on Americans under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass email."’ (Salon)   

Now that Obama has changed his mind about telecom amnesty, so has Olbermann. Now people who disagree with him and his idol — including Obama supporters sufficiently candid to admit their disappointment — are ‘the far left’, silly pie in the sky idealists with impractical and impracticable notions about civil liberties and the constitution that Obama is bravely prepared to resist: Obama won’t cower to ‘the far left’, so called; no sir!

Read the rest of this entry »

To mark the 58th anniversary of the Korean War, the North Korean regime’s rigidly-controlled media has published this ‘commentary’ lashing out the publication of a new book being distributed to South Korean students praising the United States and General Douglas MacArthur for saving their nation from communist domination.

Quoting from the Rodong Sinmun, which could be regarded as Kim Jong-il’s family newspaper, the commentary says in part:

“This is part of the sinister plot by pro-U.S. conservative forces to quell the spirit of independence and resistance to the United States, which is growing ever-stronger among adults and young people in south Korea.’

Read the rest of this entry »

It was fifty eight years ago today that the Korean War began. And while many South Koreans love and appreciate the United States for coming to their aid under the U.N. flag, increasing numbers of young South Koreans are not only oblivious to history, they regard the United States as the greatest threat to their nation.

This editorial from South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo laments the situation and lays out some of the troubling statistics:

“Thanks to U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, South Korea was saved. As United Nations commander-in-chief for Korea, MacArthur directed the famous Incheon landing . If not for this, the Republic of Korea would have been erased from the world map. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s much consternation among progressives and the Republicans over recent developments in Obama’s unmasking as the tough, take-no-prisoners politician — and centrist Democrat — he is and has always been. Jazz Shaw comments here at TMV on Obama’s ‘Rovian’ roleplaying here.

In a piece which seems to me to be simultaneously mean-spirited and [very] grudgingly admiring David Brooks writes of ‘The Two Obamas.’ Andrew Sullivan — who seemingly admires the trait — calls his comment on Obama’s [intelligent, strategically unexceptionable] decision not to go the public funding route ‘Niccolo Obama.’

In the meantime, the progressives who supported him are despondent about what they view as his 180 (though it is really a 360) on NAFTA, with respect to which it appears he isn’t as inclined as he let on back during the primaries to take a hammer to; his support of white conservative Democrat John Barrow over African-American liberal Regina Thomas; and his stated support of the FISA so-called ‘compromise’ legislation. It’s clear that a lot of them feel let down.

These are not, of course, the changes that his progressive supporters were expecting.

Were people really not listening to anything except Obama’s rhetoric?

As for ‘Rovian’ tactics, David Axelrod has been called the Democrats’ answer to Karl Rove.

Read the rest of this entry »

Outside the Beltway’s Robert Prather notes a shift:

The creationists deserve a few props here. Since the Dover loss they’ve switched strategies away from claiming that ID is science and are instead focusing on “academic freedom”. That the concept of academic freedom doesn’t generally apply at the elementary and secondary levels seems to be of no consequence. The Louisiana legislature has passed, by a veto-proof majority, a bill that protects the “academic freedom” of teachers to teach creationism as science. […]

As a soon-to-be-resident of Louisiana, it has me wondering what I’ll be walking into. This will do nothing to help the image of the state, or of the state’s high school graduates. Indeed, I can see it making the more prestigious schools avoid Louisiana graduates and it will probably discourage the best professors from working at Louisiana’s finer schools, such as Tulane and Loyola.

Furthermore, if Governor Jindal signs the bill, as opposed to just letting it become law without his signature, it will reduce his chances of being McCain’s VP pick.

Barbara Forrest of the the Louisiana Coalition for Science has put out an urgent call for action. Her full email is after the jump.

Think Progress quotes from Jindal’s appearance on Face the Nation Sunday:

I don’t think students learn by us withholding information from them. … I want them to see the best data. I personally think human life and the world we live in wasn’t created accidentally. I do think that there’s a creator. … Now the way that he did it, I’d certainly want my kids to be exposed to the very best science. I don’t want any facts or theories or explanations to be withheld from them because of political correctness.

TP goes on to note that last year McCain gave a keynote address to the Discovery Institute, a religious right-wing think tank that aggressively promotes creationism.

Newt Gingrich was on that Face the Nation program singing Jindal’s praises; Steve Benen parses Gingrich’s arguments and hopes McCain goes ahead and picks him as VP.

Michael Weiss has a good piece in Slate on the problem with using scientists’ words to support your religious beliefs. Read it!

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For those keeping score — and for Hillary Dems thinking of voting for McCain or enabling a McCain victory by not voting at all — The New York Times has a handy tally of points on which McCain and Bush agree and disagree. Before it’s all over, we’re all going to need one. Dana Milbank says it best: ‘Put Your Right Wing In, Take Your Left Wing Out —If John McCain keeps dancing like this, he’s liable to break a hip’.

People who didn’t reach the stage of political awareness before 1980 probably think the “L” word, liberal, is a pejorative term. For more than a quarter century, since Ronald Reagan’s first term, virtually every progressive idea that came into the political arena was pilloried, and often outright trashed, when the dreaded L label was pinned on it.

This was no accidental happening, no natural political turn of the wheel, no inevitable evolution. It was largely the product of a systematic, well financed campaign by right-leaning think tanks and kindred media manipulators to discredit an approach to governing they didn’t like.

Which brings us to the present. After long years during which money and effort expended on progressive causes went into individual political campaigns or simply renting the ear of politicians, left-leaning think tanks are now almost equal in number and staffing as their right-leaning counterparts, and churning out endless reams of policy papers, some rather good, a few even innovative. Read the rest of this entry »

My doctorate is in the study of group behavior, tribal and ethnic, racial and corporate, amongst others. I wrote protocol for following how groups come apart and come back together again. It’s time-tested these many years later. I witnessed it again when I covered the Libertarian National Convention last week.

There, ‘the coming together after heavy battle’ began to meld like six creeks flowing into one river. This occurred after the only one still standing after it was all over was former Congressman Bob Barr.

But right after he was elected to run for POTUS with a barely squeaked-by majority vote, almost half the 1000+ national delegates still were climbing down from their high hopes regarding at least 6 other candidates besides Barr. The blowback appears to be harder and deeper on candidates and supporters when the race is very close and only one prevails.

It took some time for the adjustment, but most were making it; albeit with certain reservations, or wait and see attitudes. Even those who disliked the candidate, unified ‘as a party’ despite personal ‘druthers.

Bottom line factors for many supporters of defeated candidates so they can and will unify with others:
–Weigh the strength of their root desire to enable some serious change via their party’s platform
–against their wanting to, at the same time, prevent something else from happening that they deem seriously deleterious

The weight of those two, often allows supporters of defeated candidates to now stand behind the one candidate-elect who may have been, a priori, their second choice, or tenth… or not even considered earlier, or only with antipathy

The process of coming together goes something like this

Explosion Out of the Gate Phase
1. Ambition (by supporters to be a part of something significant, momentous, something that will make life better, different, more meaningful to them, to the people at large…)

2. Competition (supporters find the candidate who matches their admiration quotient and/or their common sense quotient, their hopes and dreams or ideas. Once found, they throw themselves behind that candidate; showing up, planning, proselytizing, banking, beginning the push against all other candidates; each supporter in their own way)

3. Opposition (supporters withstand prevailing and opposing winds that deliver blows to their candidate; supporting that the candidate dodge or feint or punch to stay in the race… Thus, in such protective/ nurturing roles, supporters often feel deepening loyalty to the candidate, regardless of any wins/ losses/ setbacks/ progress. This loyalty is not altruistic only; for some it is deeply personal. Supporters often feel a sense of psychic and spiritual duty, as though they are ‘family of soldiers’ composed of their candidate and other supporters. This is deepened when their candidate has been battered about; supporters feel they have ‘been through a lot together…’ and the toiling and turmoil bonds the group)

Neck and Neck Phase
4. Detritions, (supporters note the weakening of many candidates’ running strength, often caused by friction from those candidates’ ideas not being resonant enough with a majority of voters. If it’s their candidate who is weakened, many supporters will try to re-strengthen their efforts, revive their candidate. If it is some other candidate, many supporters will think too bad, or good deal, and go on working for their candidate regardless)

Read the rest of this entry »

In terms of observing the global media, North Korea takes the prize for coming the closest to permitting the reader to engage in time travel.

Apparently, that notorious despot Kim Jong-il is finding it necessary to again inoculate his people against the impinging imperialist world outside.

As his nation once again starves, what is Kim now telling his people to persuade them not to veer toward the hellfire of capitalism? This op-ed article from the Kim clan’s family newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, tells North Koreans not to be fooled by the “aggressive ‘liberty and democracy’ of the imperialists.”

The article warns, “A failure to maintain vigilance against the ‘liberty’ and ‘democracy’ promoted by the imperialists may result in grave and irrevocable consequences.”

The newspaper then cautions its presumably patriotic audience to be careful about ‘freedom of thought’: “Now keep in mind, the imperialists regard ‘freedom of thought’ as an important method of destabilizing and causing degeneration in socialist countries … This is how they spread bourgeois ideas and culture.

And why are we - the Western imperialists - doing all this - and what should be done?

“This they do in an effort to realize their ambition for global domination the easy way. This is why revolutionary peoples must intensify ideological education. The ideological and cultural poisoning of the imperialists must be prevented, and the socialist cause defended.”

Read the rest of this entry »

What’s the real “dream ticket?” According to Yannick Mireur who writes for the French magazine Les Echos - it’s McCain-Obama.

In describing what makes this this year’s U.S. presidential race so fascinating, Mireur writes:

“The McCain-Obama face-off is already turning the November presidential election into an exceptional moment in American history. A Republican rebel in his seventies confronting a mixed-raced newcomer to national politics almost looks like an accidental hiccup. It is a sign that the political apparatus no longer knows how to respond to the nation’s challenges. Both candidates embody the quest for what historian Arthur Schlesinger once called ‘the vital center.’

Then Mireur describes what’s at stake, and the dichotomy of the two opponents:

“America is at a turning point. Read the rest of this entry »

In this Guest Voice post, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist Bill Steigerwald interviews Republican Bob Barr, who is seeking the libertarian Presidential nomination.:

Bob Barr Leaps in as a Libertarian — Interview

by Bill Steigerwald

With the announcement that he’ll seek the Libertarian Party’s 2008 presidential nomination, former Georgia Republican congressman Bob Barr has added another twist to an already crazy election year.

Barr, who hopes to win the LP’s top spot at the party’s convention that starts Thursday, May 22, in Denver, has an impressive resume that backs up his claim that he’s the most qualified presumptive candidate of any party.

A lawyer, former U.S. Attorney and ex-CIA official, Barr, 59, was born in Iowa, but thanks to his military parents he lived in such exotic locales as Lima and Teheran, where he graduated from high school. He served in the House from 1995 to 2003, where he was known as a hard-line conservative who hated the IRS and fought tirelessly for privacy rights and other civil liberties.

Barr is far from the perfect libertarian. Many libertarians have serious issues with him over things like his vote in favor of the Patriot Act (which he now regrets) and his zealous support of the war on drugs, which he has backed away from.

Meanwhile, Republicans are mad at Barr because they fear as a third party candidate he could do to John McCain what Ralph Nader did to Al Gore in 2000 — steal just enough votes to keep McCain out of the White House. When I talked to Barr by telephone on Thursday, he was on the grounds of the United Nations, where he said nothing is very good — even the food.

Q: Why did you decide to run?

A: I decided to run for several reasons. One, because I want to restore the Constitution to our federal government. It seems to have been completely forgotten and disregarded by Congress and by this administration. I believe in the Constitution. I believe in separation of powers. I believe in the rule of law. I believe in limited government. And these are principles and policies that apparently neither the national Republican nor the national Democrat Party believes in. I believe great damage is being done to our Constitution and I see no remedy at all, no likelihood of that changing if we rely on the two parties to field our candidates for national office.
Read the rest of this entry »

Now that the pro-Western government in Lebanon has been “put in its place” by Hezbollah - and by extension Iran and Syria - what is Israel up against - and what narrative will the Islamists use to heal the wounds and consolidate their victory?

Yasser Al Zaatera of Palestine’s Samiddon newspaper outlines the likely approach.

Explaining why Lebanon’s Pro-West Sunni government is afraid of Hezbullah and Iran, Zaatera writes:

“The people of the Umma [the Muslim Nation] and in particular the Sunnis, are as captive as they are perplexed. On the one hand, they know that what’s happening in Lebanon is an integral part of the battle that the Americans and Israelis are waging against forces of resistance and opposition in the region. Read the rest of this entry »

Is Arizona Senator John McCain facing an opposition-free Republican convention where it’ll be clear, conflict-free sailing as he wins the delegate count to make him the nominee and shapes a platform to his personal liking? According to the Los Angeles Times’ Andrew Malcomb, the answer is “nope”: Rep. Ron Paul’s forces will be there and they have other ideas:

…..[Q]uietly, largely under the radar of most people, the forces of Rep. Ron Paul have been organizing across the country to stage an embarrassing public revolt against Sen. John McCain when Republicans gather for their national convention in St. Paul at the beginning of September.

Paul’s presidential candidacy has been correctly dismissed all along in terms of winning the nomination. He was even excluded as irrelevant by Fox News from a nationally-televised GOP debate in New Hampshire.

But what’s been largely overlooked is Paul’s candidacy as a reflection of a powerful lingering dissatisfaction with the Arizona senator among the party’s most conservative conservatives. As anticipated a month ago in The Ticket, that situation could be exacerbated by today’s expected announcement from former Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia for the Libertarian Party’s presidential nod, a slot held by Paul in 1988.

And, the Washington Times reports, Barr is notably unpersuaded by GOP establishment types calling him and pleading with him not to run. So McCain will face Republican opposition from within (Paul) and outside (Barr) his party.

But it’s what happens at the convention that could be ticklish for McCain.

Since most of the convention will be considered dullsville by most of the news media with a foregone conclusion, little drama, the Paul story could get extra focus if Paul forces come up with some great quotes, angry followers, etc that could add the beloved conflict to what was supposed to be zzzzzz-er scripted coronation.

Still, the Democrats shouldn’t be grinning. As Malcomb notes, BOTH PARTIES now face divisions within them that could hurt them at the ballot box. “Nevermind Ralph Nader…” he writes.

Malcolm details the embarrassing votes McCain did not get running unopposed in many GOP primaries in recent weeks, plus other factors as well, indicating continued resistance to the Arizona Senator among conservatives. AFP reports:

While John McCain is practically assured the Republican presidential nomination, many party members are having a hard time accepting him — and showing it with symbolic votes against him in primary contests.

The Republican nomination battle has been all but decided for over two months. Still, some Republicans used the April 22 Pennsylvania primary and last week’s votes in Indiana and North Carolina to register their unhappiness with the de facto victor.

Some vote for libertarian Texan Ron Paul, who has refused to quit the race and has racked up more than one million votes, according to his campaign.

Other Republicans keep voting for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and former governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas — both markedly more conservative than McCain — although both have long since dropped out of the race and endorsed him.

As many as 25 percent of Republican voters want a different candidate to represent their party in the November 4 presidential election. In Pennsylvania, 27 percent opted for Huckabee or Paul; in North Carolina and Indiana on May 6, McCain opponents earned 23 percent of the vote.

The Washington Times, a conservative newspaper, calculated that McCain had garnered no more than 45 percent of the Republican vote since January.

The Paul forces have been giving money to their candidate and fighting local fights.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Paul forces have quietly taken over some local groups and this all part of a larger delegate war. In Maine, establishment forces battled and outvoted Paul’s troops at the convention. The situation in Nevada was much messier: e establishment forces had to recess the convention because Paul’s forces were so well-organized.

What’s going on?
Read the rest of this entry »

“God wants me to be president,” George W. Bush told fellow believers before 2000. If the rest of us had known His intentions, we would have started building an ark.

After eight years of war and political plague from this faith-based presidency, most voters may be ready for some rational doubt and ambivalence in the White House. Yet the candidates still seem mesmerized by Bush’s breakdown between the separation of church and state.

After Barack Obama gaffed about “bitter” voters turning to God and guns, Hillary Clinton was quick to play the God card. “I grew up in a church-going family, a family that believed in the importance of living out and expressing our faith,” she is telling Indiana voters. “The people of faith I know don’t ‘cling to’ religion because they’re bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich.”

John McCain left it to a spokesman to do the piety pandering, decrying Obama’s elitism and disrespect for “the American traditions that have contributed to the identity and greatness of this country.”

Ironically, Obama may take his religion more seriously than either Clinton or McCain. What damaged him in the Jeremiah Wright affair was not rejecting his pastor quickly enough to suit otherwise pious voters who want a president with the “right” kind of religious belief.

In the century before Bush, politicians stopped having to “pour God over everything like ketchup,” as Gore Vidal put it during John F. Kennedy’s presidency.

JFK himself said it best: “I believe in a President whose views on religion are his own private affair, neither imposed upon him by the nation, nor imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office…

“I want a Chief Executive whose public acts are responsible to all and obligated to none…and whose fulfillment of his Presidential office is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual, or obligation.”

With that attitude, he couldn’t get elected today.

Cross-posted from my blog.

What’s poses the greatest danger to NATO’s effort in Afghanistan? According to Dutch Scholar Gunnar Heinsohn, the answer is clear: Afghanistan’s birth rate.

Heinsohn writes for the NRC Handelsblad of The Netherlands:

“In 2008, there are 4.5 million male Afghans within the traditional warrior age of 15 to 29 years. Out of that group come the insurgents that the approximately 35,000 NATO soldiers are now dug in to confront … and behind Read the rest of this entry »

The politician was doing what he had to do, but Barack Obama’s personal pain yesterday was palpable as he cut his ties to Jeremiah Wright.

“Whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this,” Obama said. “I don’t think that he showed much concern for me.”

Behind the politician’s voice was the anger and disappointment of a man who barely knew his own father but wrote a book about him, bearing a title inspired by a paternal figure who had now betrayed him.

Searching for substitute fathers has been common for a long time now in an era of mobility, psychological desertion and divorce. Throughout his life, Obama has found more than one, not only Wright and the disreputable Tony Rezko but, among others, two figures from the Kennedy era, Abner Mikva and Newt Minow, who helped and advised him along the way.

The Wright psychodrama, and how Obama handles it, will almost certainly be a turning point in this campaign and beyond. Yesterday he seemed dazed and hurt in making the break.

“The fact that Reverend Wright would think that somehow it was appropriate to command the stage for three or four consecutive days in the midst of this major debate is something that not only makes me angry, but also saddens me,” he said in dealing with his pain publicly.

The coming days will be a test of his capacity for recovery and renewal.

Cross-posted from my blog.

Yet another study finds Democrats and Republicans going to our separate media corners. This one from University of Georgia associate professor of journalism Barry Hollander as reported by the AJC’s Political Insider:

What he documented was a quiet stampede.

In 1998, 27 percent of Republicans and 25 percent of Democrats tuned in regularly to Atlanta-based CNN. Eight years later, the number of Democrats had risen to 29 percent.

But the number of Republicans who tuned in to CNN had shrunk to 19 percent. Gosh, where do you think they went?

Over the same period, Fox News’ share of Republican viewers jumped from 14 to 36 percent.

Hollander documented a media shift among Democrats to friendly sources, too, but the most dramatic change has occurred among Republicans. And, possibly, among more casual consumers of news.

“Republicans have dramatically dropped news sources that they perceive as being biased against their position. They’ve completely fled into Fox and have left CNN, broadcast news and all the others,” Hollander said.

Outrage over alleged liberalism could explain this, except for one inconvenient fact. Republicans, Hollander said, have even dropped C-SPAN, which — because of its verbatim approach — is widely considered neutral in content.

Something larger is happening, the University of Georgia professor asserts. “People have always hung out with people like themselves,” Hollander said. The water-cooler world that most people live in is a huge echo chamber of attitudes and ideas.

“It was always thought that the media was the savior in this,” Hollander said.

Of course, “always” is a relative term. And some of us don’t want or need a big media “savior.”

Hollander comes from a very particular media bias tradition. His concerns are clear and sincere, this from the university press release for the study:

Television news audiences are divided along party lines like never before, according to a new University of Georgia study that warns the trend may have damaging consequences for political discourse and democracy in America.

“Ideology and partisanship used to be completely unrelated to the television news people consumed,” said study author Barry Hollander, associate professor of journalism in the UGA Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. “But they’ve become significant factors in the last five years.”

Hollander sounds certain that ideology and partisanship are bad and that certainty is the received wisdom of the day. But if we go back in history, say, to a time before journalism schools… Read the rest of this entry »