When the Newt Gingrich led Republican Congress of 1995 tried to slow the growth of Medicare payments, the Democrats employed hyperbolic scare tactics in an effort to prevent the reduction in growth to Medicare. Today, Senate Republicans are doing the same thing on the healthcare reform bill [...] 
The choice of Democratic primary voters in a special election to fill Kennedy’s seat should be easy. Although all of the candidates are good and accomplished people, Congressman Capuano IS ALREADY ON THE JOB. There is absolutely no mystery about his legislative record, skills, or prowess. Despite [...] 
The political debate over healthcare reform in the United States has been extremely heated despite the reality that the actual policy debate is rather tame, even boring. Constitutional, public policy, and healthcare policy experts are NOT really divided on the relevant legal and policy questions. The controversy [...] 
The following New York Times op-ed columns represent the Republican and Democratic Parties interpretations of the 2009 elections. These are not skewed views of the present reality. They are sincere, but different, perspectives on the present political “mood” offered as opening arguments in each party’s case to [...] 
Solve for X. I have always encountered resistance to theoretical discussion and debate, both in the classroom and in the public square. Students and politicians fear it, voters have no patience for it, and reporters and pundits can't sell it. Americans expect anyone with a valid argument' [...] 
I am fascinated by the responses from virtually all quarters to the President's approach to the public option element of the proposed health care insurance reforms. The media and supposedly "in the know" pundits are constantly heralding the imminent death of the public option. It appears that' [...] 
At present, the public relations war over health care reform appears to be going badly for President Obama's health care reform approach, at least if you consider public opinion polls as the definitive word on such things. Pundits from across the political spectrum have' [...] 
The considerable attention being given to conservative extremists protesting against the Democratic healthcare reform bills has raised protests from Republicans who feel that the media didn't highlight the bad behavior of liberal extremists during the Bush Administration. Are they right about that? While I' [...] 
The "teachable moment" presented by the Gates-Crowley affair has now become fodder for virtually every commentator. While listening to the radio yesterday I heard an insightful point (sadly,I missed the identity of the insight's author). The gentleman on the radio program argued that the problem with teachable' [...] 
The debate surrounding the arrest of Henry Louis Gates has created an unprecedented opportunity to engage in national conversations about the age old question infamously articulated by Rodney King; "Can't we all just get along?"
The following discussion of the incident will proceed with the facts as described by the police report. In other words, the testimony of the arresting officer will, for the purposes of this analysis, be taken as entirely accurate. Based on the report filed by Sergeant Crowley, I [...] 
The metaphor of a neutral umpire or referee is never far from the surface of any public policy debate. The politically immunizing aphorism, "I just call'em like I see'em," concisely conceals and perpetuates an assumption that is both ubiquitous in its practical adherence AND demonstrably impossible to [...] 
I would like to see (and participate in) a simulated confirmation hearing in which academics played the parts of the nominee and the Senators. Ideally, there would be at least two such simulations; one with a liberal jurist and conservative senators and one with a conservative jurist [...] 
Will Sotomayor’s inquisitors focus on the kind of Justice she would be, or will they use her hearings to advance political agendas? This question pervades much of the analysis of the Sotomayor nomination and confirmation process, but is it a fair question? Why do we assume that [...] 
Governor Sarah Palin has decided to shed the responsibilities of public office, but not the goals and objectives of most who seek such offices. Gov. Palin seems to have come to a conclusion that, I must admit, seems pretty reasonable; that influence in public life can be [...] 
Yankee manager Joe Girardi, in yesterday's game against the Florida Marlins, noticed that the Marlins had made a substitution mistake by sending one wrong player into the field for the eighth inning. So what did he do? Did he call timeout and inform the Marlins of their' [...] 
I just saw a TV commercial for MassMutual Financial Services. In it a women approaches a street corner on a rainy day, notices the puddle in the road and backs up several steps. Just then, a passing bus soaks the poor fools who did not step back [...] 
The unhinged rhetoric of present day Republicans and conservative public figures generally may represent a fairly simple misunderstanding on their part. The last couple of elections have seen the convincing rebuke of Republicans and conservative ideas and rhetoric. I suspect the present conservative rhetorical offensive against the [...] 
Are the people of Longmeadow united by their membership in a community where citizens have broadly shared values, institutional obligations, and economic interests? Or, is Longmeadow a town where residents share resources, have overlapping cultural values, but see their relationship with town government as economic; the way [...] 
When life was simpler it seems like we were better able to segregate the reasonable from the unreasonable, the passionate from the paranoid, the intense from the insane. Today, there is no longer a big bright line recognized by all separating the ridiculous from reality.
President Obama's speech on national security this week drew more criticism from the left than it did from the right, despite the fact that he eviscerated the previous administration on its handling of national security affairs. After decisively declaring an end to the Bush era of national' [...] 
People constantly ask me about the differences between left and right in American politics; what divides us as Americans? In some ways its an easy question to answer. The difficulty is, in fact, that there are so many useful (if incomplete) ways to explain it. The tricky [...] 
The liberal media watchdog website, Media Matters for America has produced a video montage of the Fox News Channel's coverage of the Obama Administration in its first 100 days. For people who don't watch Fox News much, the video is surreal. Comparing this depiction of Fox [...] 
Arlen Specter's surprise defection from the GOP should give the Republican Party just the kind of wake up call it needs. When Al Frankin gets to Washington, the Democrats will have the magic number of 60 votes in the US Senate.
In thinking about the public relations battle between President Obama and his critics, I find myself thinking of that lovable scamp Ferris Beuller gracefully riding a wave of self confidence and popularity, while his Nemesis, Principal Ed Rooney, haplessly pursues him only to to [...] 
Although I often cringe at the commonplace notion that politics and policy are mutually exclusive, there is a good reason for this common misconception. In Massachusetts politics today we have a Democratic governor and a legislature overwhelmingly dominated by Democrats at a time when the Republican Party [...] 
It's April Fools day but there's nothing funny about the ongoing self destruction of America's conservative political party. The Republican Party has had a really bad decade or so. The gap between the Republican Party's principles and its performance in office makes the Grand Canyon look like [...] 
Last fall at CCSU a student was asked to come to the police station for questioning about firearms possession after he had given an oral presentation in a communication class in which he argued that students and faculty should be allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus. [...] 
Readers of this blog can be forgiven for rolling their eyes as I write yet another post bemoaning the fixation of just about everyone with the who, rather than the what, of politics. In Washington, DC today everybody is killing themselves to avoid blame for the current [...] 
Readers of this blog know that David Brooks is one of my favorite columnists. His latest column was a gem, though I do have quibbles.
President Obama's efforts to bring about a "post-identity" politics is rightfully praised by one and all, right? That depends on what is meant by the term "identity" politics. It appears that most consider it a synonym for "partisan" politics, which is why Obama has used the term' [...] 
I have spent my life listening to speeches by civic leaders called in youth to their life's work by the words of Kennedy and King. President Obama's call, no less poignant, will be no less potent. Today, I am as thankful for a national leader capable of [...] 
George W. Bush gave his final press conference this morning. He was probably more relaxed and in control than ever before at such an event. While his presidency was undoubtedly less than he had hoped for, there is no reason why his ex-presidency need be.
I am sorry that I have not blogged in so long. The thing is: I haven't had any ideas worth sharing. One of the good things about blogging is that I don't have to write on a schedule and produce something just to have it out there. [...] 
As the President-Elect assembles his White House and executive branch team he, like all his modern predecessors, must answer difficult questions about the differences between his campaign rhetoric and his present claims and comments. The press is duty bound to highlight potential conflicts and the president is [...] 
When Ronald Reagan said "facts are stupid things" I thought he was making a profound statement about the difficulty of deriving objective meaning from facts. Apparently, he was actually just fumbling an attempt to quote John Adams, who called facts "stubborn things." I thought of this while [...] 
Overcoming bias is probably the most difficult and the most essential element of intellectual work. At a website called Overcoming Bias sponsored by Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute I stumbled onto what I call a web gem, not to be confused with the' [...] 
One source of blog posts is the op-ed pages of the newspapers I read. This evening, while proctoring an exam, I settled in to read a couple of columns published in my local paper. First, I found myself laughing out loud at a [...] 
One sad, but seemingly inescapable element of electoral politics, is the impossibility of complex arguments. Oversimplification and even blatant anti-intellectualism appear to be the price of mass democracy (at least during elections). But what about post election politics? Why can't Americans spend the "transition" period engaged in' [...] 
The Springfield Republican newspaper has endorsed John McCain and Sarah Palin. Actually, the editors avoided any mention of Palin in their endorsement (I wonder why). Apparently, the one campaign decision that is indicative of executive ability was not important to the editors of the Republican newspaper.
Many of the efforts to smear Barack Obama are the result of his 10 years of "subversive" activism, otherwise known as his time as a professor at the University of Chicago. Apparently, in "real America" everybody knows that professors are by definition "subversive" and un-patriotic. They hate [...] 
This colorful metaphor for the futility of bad arguments has gotten some play in this election cycle. It is nowhere more in evidence than the op-ed pages of our nation's newspapers. Though there has been a deluge of conservative intellectuals leaping from the Republican cause for some' [...] 
Every day Republican supporters of John McCain and Sarah Palin do media interviews with the help of a very familiar, yet still unsettling, playbook. Respectable men and women who hold high office and other responsible positions in society are telling talk show hosts and reporters that Barack [...] 
I have written a lot recently of the troubling anti-intellectualism in American politics and society in general. There has been a veritable flood of books and other treatments of this widely recognized trend. While the present election is providing vivid examples of this sad reality, it is [...] 
Political campaigns tend to highlight a near universal view of politics; namely that it ain't good and good people don't need to do it. This perverse notion of politics is even more in evidence during presidential campaigns. The irony is that not only is politics one of, [...] 
All the hubbub about the Republican vice presidential nominee, while entertaining, may have greater significance that we cannot appreciate in the middle of a very competitive campaign. I am confident that no one, including John McCain and Sarah Palin herself, thinks the governor of Alaska is ready [...] 
As an educator, activist, and citizen I spend a great deal of time trying to explain the relationship between institutions (like political parties, the Congress, the White House), ideas (like liberalism and conservatism, regulation and de-regulation), and interests (like winning elections). The 2008 presidential election is unfolding [...] 
Obviously the content free conventions and TV commercials in this presidential campaign season are frustrating for reasonable people. Thank God we have good comedians. Jon Stewart's coverage of the conventions may save America from itself.
While I will vote for Democratic nominee Barack Obama and my informed conservative friends will vote for McCain because we understand that each will try to advance policies and political ideas that are consistent with our policy and ideological preferences, the voters who are the primary targets [...] 
The importance of "context" to all human actions and decisions is too obvious to need mention. Or is it? How and why has this most fundamental law of human intelligence been so thoroughly obscured and misconstrued in modern American politics? Attempts to answer this question could, and [...] 
David Brooks has always been one of my favorite syndicated columnists. A political and intellectual conservative, Brooks routinely helps me examine my assumptions while at the same time clearly articulating his own. A recent Brooks column provides a wonderful example of commentary that makes the reader [...] 
This fall Massachusetts voters will be asked whether or not to eliminate the state's income tax. The issue, relentlessly pushed for years by the state's Libertarian Party is a perfect example of why the Framers of the Constitution sought to create a "representative" democracy at the national [...] 
The 2008 presidential election is a "change" election. Though Obama has been the better marketer of the term, both candidates are trying to sell themselves as the right "change" agents for our time. The mass media has spent every waking hour buzzing about what each of these [...] 
Conservative scholar and pundit Thomas Sowell has written a very useful piece about the destructive impact of anti-intellectual politics called "Are Facts Obsolete?" 
If your vote for president in the general election turns on the following, you are a sucker: Character issues, such as consistency, temperament, judgment, experience, or any other quality that accrues to the individual candidate, rather than to their political ideology; abstract ideas like hope, the "American dream" or an [...]
The effort to spin Obama’s comments about the bitterness of Pennsylvania voters continues. A skillful dissection of the differences between what Obama said and what he now says he was trying to say can be found in the National Review Online. The NRO piece by [...] 
The Amherst-Pelham Regional School Committee recently passed a resolution that urges the state legislature to enact changes to the way the state funds special education and charter schools. Additionally, they have called on the state’s lawmakers to change the Chapter 70 formula by creating a $3,000 [...] 
The rejection of Governor Patrick’s plan to bring casinos to the Bay State has me wondering. The Governor and the Speaker of the House, Sal Dimasi, have appeared to be in a personal struggle over the [...] 
Last night’s Select board meeting, which drew a large crowd, did clear up some nagging questions. 
How can proponents and opponents of the president's healthcare reform proposal make the same claims about the advantages of their preferred approach? 
Jim Flaherty at Boston Comedy Club 
