The Liberal Doomsayer My blog deals primarily with national politics in the U.S. as well as, on occasion, local politics in Pennsylvania. From time to time, I may have something to say about sports and entertainment as well. I try to interpret information that shapes the news and provide context to current events. I am definitely left of center politically, but as far as I'm concerned, neither major party is perfect. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 33 0 106 4211

Articles from The Liberal Doomsayer

No More Curtain Calls For "BALCO Barry" 2007-11-16 10:11:00 I really don’t want to devote much time to posting about Barry Bonds and the four-count perjury indictment handed down against him yesterday, but I’m only mentioning this to provide an opportunity to revisit this column about Bonds written by the late, great David Halberstam. As with many people of talent, the author spends a sizeable amount of effort here featuring himself (interesting though Halberstam’s life was), but what he writes about Bonds is typically dead-on accurate. ...

A Moment From The Debate Last Night 2007-11-16 06:46:00 I'm not exactly sure why "the natives were restless" when John Edwards merely pointed out an inconsistency between what Senator Clinton said on two different occasions about the same issue, but I have a pretty good idea why Wolf "So Poor And So Black" (remember that one?) Blitzer was trying to hurry up Edwards and not let him finish what he was trying to say.Anyway, I thought you'd like to take a look (and to help, click here). ...

Thursday Videos 2007-11-15 23:04:00 Happy Birthday to Chad Kroeger of Nickleback ("Someday"; so, uh, let me guess - this video is all some M. Night Shyamalan thing here, as in the person you think is dead really isn't but the other one is? Way too much to think about, but a good vid otherwise)......and Happy Birthday also to primo '60s pop diva Petula Clark ("Kiss Me Goodbye" accompanied by an album cover slide show - what a string of hits she had with one-time producer Tony Hatch). ...

For Your Viewing Pleasure 2007-11-15 22:42:00 More "quality programming" from Fox, the electronic media equivalent of a peep show (or so I hear - ahem)......and this very cool video titled "We The People" was put together by Adam Klugman, actor Jack's son, and I found it at Brave New Films - many thanks (a little hard to hear, but every word is important). ...

No Faith In Politics 2007-11-15 16:45:00 David D. Kirkpatrick of the New York Times wrote this today about Willard Mitt Romney’s 1968 ministry in Paris as a Mormon missionary, when he and other Americans faced often-irate French, angry with the U.S. over the Vietnam War (and I give Romney credit for making this sacrifice, more than that made by some of the other Repug candidates for president).If you don’t mind, though, I’ll just skip ahead and answer the question of whether or not what Romney dealt with at this time somehow may have made him question our current quagmire in Iraq. I think it’s a reflection of Romney’s utter lack of curiosity or intellect that the answer is a resounding no; the only moment in Kirkpatrick’s story where you learn of any kind of emotional expression by The Mittster is as follows…When (Romney) heard over a car radio in 1978 that the (Mormon) church would offer blacks full membership, he said, he pulled over and cried.Gee gosh, Mitt, what a shame that everyone in your faith isn’t as ...

Don't Flip On SCHIP, Dems! 2007-11-15 15:30:00 Writer Robert Pear of the New York Times tells us here about eight Democratic senators who have communicated to Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer in the House (the Dem leadership, of course) not to concoct any kind of a “compromise” on SCHIP that limits the rights of states to cover parents along with their kids.My mind boggles as to why the hell the Democrats in the House would even imagine that such a “compromise” would be palatable to the vast majority of Americans who have firmly decided that fully funding SCHIP in the legislation they have already passed is the right thing to do, as opposed to Dubya and the Repugs who are completely and utterly wrong to oppose such legislation.And if Pelosi and Hoyer want to hear from someone else in Congress on this (don’t know why they should have to, though), then read this…“In my home State of Arizona, our SCHIP program, KidsCare, was developed to provide low income children with medical, dental, and vision coverage. KidsCare has succ ...

Bad Portents On Obama-Rama 2007-11-15 14:34:00 (Another odd posting day...)I don’t know about you, but I’m seriously wondering where the Democratic presidential campaign of Barack Obama is going these days.And I’m not just saying this because I support John Edwards; I respect Senator Obama very much for a variety of reasons, but this tells you that he recently pronounced the health care initiatives of the Clinton Administration (of which Hillary was a big part, of course) as “doomed by secrecy,” and that is why related legislation was never passed or signed into law.Now I know that the source I linked to here is the tabloid New York Sun, which isn’t exactly going to give the Dems a fair shake. However, we’re talking about a quote here, not some subjective, negative freeper spin.I would ask that Senator Obama read this Wikipedia article on the Clinton health care plan, specifically the following…Starting on September 28, 1993, Hillary Clinton appeared for several days of testimony before five congressional committees ...

Wednesday Videos 2007-11-14 22:50:00 Moby ("That's When I Reached For My Revolver"- easy now)......and Happy Birthday to Brian Yale of Matchbox Twenty ("If You're Gone" - lip synch seems to be off, but still a good song). ...

Repug Presidential Lowlights 2007-11-14 22:24:00 Dr. Frank Newport, Editor-In-Chief of The Gallup Poll, gives us the latest numbers on George W. Milhous Bush (from Brave New Films)......and Jackie and Dunlap have a question for all of the Repug presidential candidates out there (love the Thompson dig, by the way). ...

The Answer To Our Prayers? 2007-11-14 17:32:00 Did you know that President George W. Milhous Bush “already has begun withdrawing some troops” from Iraq?Happy, happy day!I mean, it must be true, right? Anne Flaherty of the AP tells us so here.Of course, there’s no corroboration at all. No specifics. No quote attribution. No approximate amount of troops withdrawn within a given timeframe, or what that timeframe might be. No divisions or regiments named as part of the withdrawal.Nothing, only what I just pointed out.And that piece of propaganda made its way into the story anyway.I just thought you’d like to know.And by the way, AP, good job proofreading too. ...

Wednesday Mashup (11/14/07) 2007-11-14 16:28:00 I don’t really know what to do with this stuff, so here it is…So Rudy! has offered to mediate the strike of the WGA in Hollywood, has he? Wow. I mean, it’s so beyond the realm of possibility that Guiliani is tossing out this moronic sound bite to the lap dog New York Sun to get out of the spotlight from Judith Regan’s claim in her lawsuit that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp wanted her to lie to protect him, isn’t it?Well, at least Rudy! won’t have to worry about David Broder investigating his personal life, as noted here; how magnanimous of The Dean Of Beltway Journalism to spare Rudy! the same fate he meted out to the Clintons.And by the way (and this is a minor point, but I have to note it), since Michael Bloomberg is the mayor of New York City now, isn’t it incredibly wrong to refer to Rudy as “Mayor Giuliani,” as Gerstein does in the Sun story (where he only refers to it as “the writer’s strike,” though I realize that’s what it is, and mentions the people wh ...

Help Our Bridge Team "Scotch" The "Palooka" 2007-11-14 14:46:00 (The quoted terms both are part of the lexicon of the card game of bridge, as noted here.)It seems that the life form who once proclaimed that he wanted to be “a uniter, not a divider” has managed to create division in everything Americans do in this country as well as overseas, and that poisoned atmosphere is everywhere.Yes, I know this is “department of the obvious” stuff here, but it’s the only reaction I have in response to this story that appeared in (of all places) the Arts and Leisure section of the New York Times today….…in a fight reminiscent of the brouhaha over an anti-Bush statement by Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks in 2003, a team of women who represented the United States at the world bridge championships in Shanghai last month is facing sanctions, including a yearlong ban from competition, for a spur-of-the-moment protest.At issue is a crudely lettered sign, scribbled on the back of a menu, that was held up at an awards dinner and read, “We did not vo ...

Say Bye Bye To Di? 2007-11-14 12:56:00 The latest from Democracy For America...My name is Chris Finnie and I've been a California DFA member since the Dean campaign. I need your help on an urgent Senate vote.In California, we have a law -- commonly called the three-strikes law. And, like all laws, I think it ought to apply to everybody -- including my Senator, Diane Feinstein.Too many times Senator Feinstein has failed to represent the people of California. Now she has announced that this Thursday she will support President Bush for the third time in two months. And it all comes down to Senator Feinstein's role on the Judiciary Committee.Strike One: A Bush nominee for the federal bench, Leslie Southwick has a long history of rulings in lower courts that violate equality laws. Feinstein cast a deciding vote to give him a lifetime seat.Strike Two: Michael Mukasey, nominated for Attorney General, refused to say he would oppose torture. But Feinstein voted to send his confirmation to the Senate floor anyway.Now she's poised ...

You Almost Didn’t Make The Cut, Inky 2007-11-14 12:43:00 I noted earlier that the circulation of the weekly editions of the Philadelphia Inquirer had registered a 2.3 percent increase recently, though the Sunday edition had slipped 2.9 percent. Despite that, though, Brian Tierney and Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C. are prepared to launch the “Flying Pigs II” ad campaign to note the weekly circulation increase.In the wake of this news, we have this Editor and Publisher story of the top 30 most popular newspaper web sites for October.And, by measure of audience per site, Philly.com registered 28th of 30 sites.Now, to be fair, I believe there are a number of factors here, primarily population of the geographic area where the site is based (which to me explains why BaltimoreSun.com, a perfectly respectable site, came in dead last), as well as per capita income and (related to that) familiarity with and trends of online navigation, as well as location of computer-related industries (I believe the latter factor partly explains the fact that ...

Gerri Ferraro Needs To Chill 2007-11-14 11:15:00 I know I said something about this earlier, but former Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro (who ran on the ticket with Walter Mondale in 1984) had complained of “sexism” in the treatment Senator Hillary Clinton received in the most recent Democratic presidential candidates debate in Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago.Well, she wrote a letter on the subject that was published in the New York Times today as a follow up, in which she states as follows (and repeats the sexism charge)…It will help if, next time out, John Edwards and Senator Obama stick to substantive policy disagreements with Senator Clinton. If they can’t, they’ll only prove themselves unworthy of our party’s nomination.Since Ferraro provides no examples of alleged sexism by Edwards or any other presidential candidate, I reviewed the transcript of the debate here. And I found out some interesting information, paying particular attention to what John Edwards said:Edwards made a lot of good p ...