As many readers of The Duck may know I am currently on hiatus working full time and writing my dissertation--a handful to say the least.To that end, can anyone recommend any books or articles that do a good job of summarizing the literature on presidential rhetoric...
Deborah Boucoyannis has published a thought-provoking article in this month’s Perspectives on Politics in which she argues that neo-realism is actually most consistent with classical liberalism, and...
Hillary Clinton is running as the “Experienced” candidate. Her political experience consists of 8 years in the US Senate and 8 years in the White House as First Lady. In her speeches and discussion,...
I saw Charlie Wilson’s War Saturday night (two thumbs up, Phillip Seymour Hoffman is fantastic, and the great irony about the film is that they had to tone it down from Wilson’s actual life). What’s...
Ever since the invention of the InterNet, not a December goes by without some version of this making the rounds of listservs and e-mail chains and the like. I must have received it a dozen times from various sources. It's cute and funny and all, but I must say that I've never been entirely happy with its conclusions. So in the spirit of the season, I present the first known social constructionist investigation in the the existence of Santa Claus. I mean, why should the natural sciences get to have all the fun -- and why should they get to corner the market on looking into such matters?The...
In the post- 9-11, post Iraq world of Intelligence and policy, the great hue and cry has been that the US needs better Human Intelligence. To that end, the Intelligence Reform act created the National Clandestine Service out of the CIA's old Directorate of Operations, in an attempt to beef up our human intelligence capability.Joseph Weisberg, writing in the Washington Post, raises an interesting and provocative argument:Although we dedicate enormous resources to recruiting "human sources," there just aren't many good ones available. The central problem is that the people who actually know...
Yes, you read the title correctly. I don't think the United States should withdraw from Iraq. My disagreement with the views of some of my fellow bloggers, most of "my blog friends," and every candidate with a shot at getting my vote in the 2008 elections, stems from a number of ethical and realpolitik considerations.I feel strongly that the United States has an ethical obligation to repair Iraq--or at least to continue to try. I agree, in essence, with the so-called "Pottery Barn" rule: we broke it, we own it.[1] This is a matter of accepting moral responsibility for all the harm we've...
Foreign Policy has released its annual “Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2007.” Among the contenders: 1. The Cyberwars Have Begun. However, see Miriam Dunn Cavelty’s article “Cyberterrorism: Looming Threat or Phantom Menace” in the inaugural issue of the Journal of Information Technology and Politics. 2. US Navy is in Iraq for the Long Haul. And a good thing too, if trade in the Arabian Gulf is to be protected from the emerging threat of piracy, which is on the rise off the coast of Iraq and is already thriving in other areas of the world characterized by state failure. See the International...
An actual job description currently posted on the website of a major government contractor:JOB DESCRIPTION:The Policy Analyst would focus primarily on projects investigating the creation and evolution of subnational identities within and across states, focusing on the construction and interpretation of narratives, contestation, and negotiation with hegemonic discourses, and the temporalization of values, ethics, and ideals. In the project, analysts conduct research on reiterative social interaction between an object group and other groups, discursive practices of political and religious...
The recently leaked photographs of Liberal Fascisms table of contents have provided some of my favorite bloggers with an excuse for another round of snark at Jonah Goldberg's expense. John Cole mostly hits the proverbial nail on the head when he writes:The most depressing thing about Jonah Goldberg’s new book is that this whole “liberals are fascist” argument is going to morph from something idiot frat boys would argue after three credit hours in poly sci. and a dozen Mickey’s Big Mouth and would be laughed out of the room to something that idiots like Peggy Noonan and David brooks will...
Several days ago, I asked if someone making 97,000 / year was Middle Class, and Rodger followed up wonderful post on the two "two Americas," economic and cultural.Matt Bai, NY Times Magazine political writer and new contributor to their political blog The Caucus, raises the issue again. Responding to a John Edwards ad where Edwards promises to "save the middle class," Bai asks:All the Democratic candidates, to one extent or another, have been blurring the distinction between the poor and the “middle class” — arguing, in effect, that rising inequality means there is increasingly little...
The press has periodically made note of various allegations, but the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee just released (December 12) its full report on Political Interference with Climate Change Science Under the Bush Administration. The Committee has been gathering evidence for 16 months and examined 27,000 pages of documents from the Bush administration. It also conducted multiple hearings and interviewed key figures.What did the Committee find? The Report's homepage provides this summary:The evidence before the Committee leads to one inescapable conclusion: the Bush...