It's hard to overstate the effect Watergate had on a whole generation of journalists. We were in journalism school when it happened, and, man, oh, man, here was the perfect example of just what we were aspiring to. Brave, dogged reporters take on the powerful and corrupt and, with the help of a courageous insider, expose the truth and bring down a president.
And, of course, it was all a big crock.
Tuesday’s Associated Press report that President Obama is considering large cuts in our strategic arsenal is just the latest of this week’s grim news about the president’s national-defense plans.
Earlier this month, we learned that Ruth Bader Ginsburg wouldn't recommend our own Constitution as a model for other countries considering one, because, you know, it's really too old to be relevant today, and it doesn't guarantee nearly enough rights, and it's much too hard to change. That seemed to me to betray a complete ignorance of what a constitution should be -- a bedrock of principles upon which the law is erected.
Further proff, if anybody still needs it, that we live in a culture that sometimes values style over substance, the symbolic over the real, the aesthetic over the functional, appearances over meaning . . . well, you get the idea. After a prolonged controversy over an abbreviated quote on the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial, the National Park Service has announced it will replace the abridgment ("I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness") with the full quote -- "Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice.
Depressing news, but not exactly a shock:
The American public's dependence on the federal government shot up 23% in just two years under President Obama, with 67 million now relying on some federal program, according to a newly released study by the Heritage Foundation.
I don't have anything profound to say about it, but this milestone shouldn't go unnoticed:
A fair question is raised here:
The New York Giants on Tuesday will be showered with confetti and greeted by throngs as they are feted with the city’s most storied honor: a parade through its Canyon of Heroes.
So sad. The greatest political document in the history of the world is getting less respect these days:
The Constitution has seen better days.
I thought conservatives were the wingnuts and it's the liberals who are supposed to be the moonbats:
A day after Newt Gingrich vowed to build a base on the moon by the end of his second term in office, Rick Santorum suggested that such a promise was merely pandering to Florida voters.
For the first time in its 71-year history, the Chicago Sun-Times says it will not make endorsements in the upcoming elections.
In an editorial published Monday, the Sun-Times essentially said as a newspaper endorsements are passé at a time when there are so many other sources of information that “allow even a casual voter to be better informed than ever before.”
