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Political Commentary

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July 9, 2008

Obama's New Strategy By Dick Morris

The list of issues on which Barack Obama has flipped now that the primaries are over is long and growing rapidly.

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July 8, 2008

What Americans Want in Immigration By Froma Harrop

Immigration is said to be a divisive issue, but it really isn't. Large majorities of Americans favor legal immigration, and large majorities oppose illegal immigration.

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July 7, 2008

No Permanent GOP Minority By Robert Novak

When House Republican leaders left Washington for their Fourth of July break, they felt good about outwitting the Democratic majority. The feeling was not reciprocated 3,000 miles away, where conservative California Republican activists were drafting an ultimatum.

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July 5, 2008

Gen. Clark's Attack By Rober Novak

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, whose stock as Sen. Barack Obama's possible vice presidential running mate had been rising, may have ruined his chances with his belittling attack on Sen. John McCain's war record.

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July 5, 2008

Obama's Candidacy is a Test By Michael Barone

"They're going to try to make you afraid of me," Barack Obama told the audience at a Jacksonville fundraiser last month. "He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?" Obama was doing here by inference what many of his supporters do more explicitly.

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July 4, 2008

Supreme Court Boosts Obama by Dick Morris

The nine august justices of the United States Supreme Court — or at least the five conservative Republicans — chose the wrong time to make a sea change in constitutional law, admitting the Second Amendment to our pantheon of civil liberties.

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July 3, 2008

The Politics of Foreclosure By Froma Harrop

What are the politics of the housing meltdown? Foreclosure agony is undoubtedly a campaign issue, but the political question remains: What do the voters want their leader to do about it? Then there's the economic question: What can a president do about it -- other than ask taxpayers to bail out people who took on more debt than they could handle?

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July 3, 2008

Fake Outrage Over Clark Comments By Joe Conason

Despite all the feigned outrage fanned by the mainstream media and the right-wing noisemakers, Wesley Clark -- retired four-star general, former Supreme Commander of NATO, wounded and highly decorated veteran of ground combat in Vietnam and a military man to his core -- assuredly did not denigrate the war record of John McCain when he talked about the Republican candidate on television last Sunday.

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July 3, 2008

Visitor From Pakistan By Robert Novak

Yousuf Raza Gilani, prime minister of Pakistan, will lunch with George W. Bush in the White House on Monday, July 28. That will not be merely another of the president's routine meetings with foreign leaders. As Pakistan's democratically elected government and U.S. diplomats understand, the lunch symbolizes a turn away from Washington's attachment to military rule under the discredited Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

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July 3, 2008

An America-First Energy Plan By Lawrence Kudlow

President Bush was on message Wednesday in a Rose Garden news conference, when he kept up the pressure on his a drill, drill, drill offensive. He said he knows Americans are worried about gasoline prices and wants them "to understand fully that we have got the opportunity to find more crude oil here at home in environmentally friendly ways."

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July 2, 2008

Plugging the Patriotism Gap By Dick Morris

Barack Obama yesterday kicked off a week of patriotic speeches. It's much more than the normal politician's July 4 oration - it's Obama's answer to a crucial test.

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July 2, 2008

The Politics of Patriotism By Susan Estrich

Should John McCain have to "defend" his military record? Of course not. But the fact that he served in the military, with distinction, does not mean he's qualified to be president.

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June 30, 2008

Scalia Saving Obama By Robert Novak

After months of claiming insufficient information to express an opinion on the District of Columbia gun law, Barack Obama noted with apparent approval Thursday that the Supreme Court ruled the 32-year ban on handguns "went too far."

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June 28, 2008

Why is Bush Entertaining Abu Dhabi Crown Prince? By Dick Morris

Why is the president of the United States entertaining Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince, Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, at Camp David when his own State Department has singled out the Sheik’s homeland, the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), for its continuing violations of human rights?

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June 28, 2008

Empty Fed Chairs By Robert Novak

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has appealed to Senate Democratic leaders to confirm President Bush's long-pending nominations to fill two empty chairs as Fed governors, enabling a fully staffed central bank to handle the current financial crisis. He did not receive a favorable response from Sen. Christopher Dodd, Senate Banking Committee chairman.

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June 28, 2008

Why Veeps Now Matter By Michael Barone

"Not Exactly a Crime" is the title of a book on America's vice presidents published in 1972 -- a year before Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced to resign for actually committing a crime.

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June 27, 2008

Where's Bernanke's Inner Volcker? By Lawrence Kudlow

On the day after an unusually important Fed policy meeting, both gold and stocks severely rebuked the central bank's decision to take no action in support of the weak dollar or to curb rapidly growing inflation. Gold spiked $30, a clear message that Bernanke & Co. won't stop inflation. Stocks plunged over 200 points, an equally clear message that the Fed's cheap-dollar inflation is damaging economic growth.

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June 26, 2008

Inventing a Country-Club Muslim Marxist By Joe Conason

Precisely on schedule, the usual assortment of right-wing operatives is preparing its expected assault on the Democratic presidential nominee. While this unwholesome phase of the election cycle is known universally as "Swift-boating" -- named after the defamatory media blitz against John Kerry four years ago -- the style and some of the personnel date back at least two decades.

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June 26, 2008

Who Is Cutting Women's Lives Short? By Froma Harrop

News that life expectancy among some American women has fallen earned startled headlines, as well it should. In this country, life expectancy is something that's supposed to go up. It took a big scourge, such as the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, to depress it.

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June 26, 2008

Time Is On My Side: The Nomination Gap By Michael Baudinet

Much has been made in the past of presidential candidates' campaign theme songs, but there would be no more appropriate choice for this year's Republican nominee, John McCain, than the Rolling Stones' classic, "Time Is on My Side."