We need a new American consensus driven by a commitment to knowledge, reason and good faith engagement with those whose views differ from our own. For decades I have toyed with the idea that we could use a civic forum for popular debate, an organization that would make it possible for communities to discuss the issues of the day in ways
Read moreRemember back before the first debate when Mitt let us know he was working on his zingers? Yep. Clearly he wanted to land a punch that would push him over the top in the public consciousness, score the iconic rhetorical knockout blow that people would still be pointing to decades later. He wanted to be like Ronnie: There you go
Read moreAmerica’s democratic ideal doesn’t work perfectly. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all, and in these cases it feeds our cynicism to the point where we’re tempted to conclude that the very possibility of true freedom is a sham. I know whereof I speak, because there are few people out there more soaked in bile than I am. Still, this whole
Read moreHey, America: are your politicians stupid or do they just think you are? Check this new analysis of Thursday night’s “debate”: An analysis carried out by a language monitoring service said Friday that Gov. Sarah Palin spoke at a more than ninth-grade level and Sen. Joseph Biden spoke at a nearly eighth-grade level in Thursday night’s debate between the vice
Read moreI’m sitting here taking in what the collected punditry has to say in the aftermath of tonight’s Veep Debate. These aren’t direct quotes, but most of the comments go something like this: “Well, she didn’t answer any of the questions, but she held her own.” “She didn’t make any major mistakes.” “I think she did a great job of not
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lullaby pit 