by Dan Nexon | 8 Jan 2008 |
Patrick Deneen, one of my colleagues at Georgetown, has a terrific discussion of Jonah Goldberg's critique of Huckabee:I can't remember a more deceptive piece of agitprop in recent American politics. Goldberg is a free-marketeer, small government (i.e., let the market do as it will), big national defense (i.e., U.S. should run the world in our best interest), secular-minded "conservative": i.e., there's not an actual conservative bone in his...
by Peter | 7 Jan 2008 |
I was listening to the International Hour of the Diane Rehm Show Weekly News Round-Up on podcast while jogging yesterday, and I heard David Ignatius (as noted previously, a friend of Bhutto's from their Harvard days...) make an interesting point.He said that we in the US tended to see Bhutto as the future of democracy in Pakistan in large part because she seemed like one of us. Educated at Harvard, fully conversant in Western culture, history,...
by Dan Nexon | 7 Jan 2008 |
No measurement of quality of life is complete without an awesomeness-of-being-American input. Thus, we can safely reject this study's conclusions.
by Dan Nexon | 7 Jan 2008 |
Mitt Romney's explaining how only someone from outside Washington can make change happen. Where have we heard that before?This particular canard seems to be one of the most unchanging features of American politics. It works because of another consistent feature of American politics: the endless forgetfulness of the American voter.Regardless, I assume everyone else notices that the arguments about "change" among the Democratic and Republican...
by Dan Nexon | 6 Jan 2008 |
Some random thoughts on the Presidential race, filtered through the lens of multiple pain killers and a muscle relaxant:1. Huckabee's "horizontal" versus "vertical" politics line appears to be a very good example of multivocal signaling. It sounds, to many Americans, like another version of Obama's rhetoric about elevating politics above partisan bickering. But it also appears to be code for a politics centered around man's relationship to god,...
by Peter | 2 Jan 2008 |
I’ve been pondering the assassination of former (and potentially future) Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto for a few days and have been struggling with what I might say about it. It was this column by Anne Applebaum that provided the hook to crystallize a few thoughts.If you read the coverage of Bhutto’s death, particularly in the Washington Post, you notice a strong movement to lionize her and her legacy. Applebaum pointed this out (with helpful...
by Charli Carpenter | 2 Jan 2008 |
... for those burned to death inside a church in Kenya yesterday. The victims were members of the Kikuyu tribe, whose ruling party is suspected of having rigged the recent election; the mob that doused the church with gasoline and set it alight was mostly Kalenjins, Luhyas and Luos, the ethnic group of the party dominated by the opposition, who is contesting the electoral results.Genocide Watch has released a genocide alert for Kenya in the...
by Peter | 1 Jan 2008 | Featured
Happy 2008 everyone.
by Bill Petti | 29 Dec 2007 |
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 and its influence on public opinion? I am looking for literature on this topic generally, on presidential influence on foreign policy as well as presidential approval ratings.Many...
by Charli Carpenter | 28 Dec 2007 |
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 in which she articulates a new way of distinguishing realist and liberal IR theory. If her argument is correct, most of us will have to completely rethink how we teach the two theories in our introductory classes.In particular, she argues that “the...
by Peter | 27 Dec 2007 |
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, she leaves a great deal of that resume deliberately ambiguous, and in doing so, raises a very important question: How should one count the experience of being First Lady? The New York Times addresses that issue today:In seeking the Democratic...
by Peter | 25 Dec 2007 |
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 most fascinating about watching a movie like that is how much of a commentary it is on the present day, as the events from 20+ years ago have a direct and not at all subtle link to the present day’s politics.There’s a very poignant scene in the...