Who's afraid of moral judgment?

At its core, politics is about power; and we rightly demand that those who vie for power, i.e. public office, should at least prove that they are worthy of wielding it. What better measurement to ascertain a candidate’s ability to wield such power than the substance of his or her character?

The Terrorists Have Mail

Congressional elections are not often cause for a great deal of stress to the average American citizen. But this election season voters seem to be personally involved to a higher level than in past elections. One of the reasons for this greater degree of involvement is that the world has become increasingly smaller and the stakes have become much more significant than in years past.

To the extent that the world has considerably shrunk in size, we are all well aware – as implied by the President in a recent weekly radio address - of the motivations behind concerted attacks by terrorists in Iraq, not the least of which has been proffered through their own initiative to counsel us in the past as to what direction our country should take pending the election of our own commander in chief. Conversely, terrorists are well aware of the potential for their planned attacks to indirectly steer this country’s political climate in their favor.

Cautious Optimism turns to murderous rage

The strategy to engender a kind of fury that eventually yields to wholesale apathy in the conservative base does not seem to have worked as Democrats had hoped. The engineered saturation of the public with the Mark Foley scandal has failed to dispel the suspicion that Democrats are lacking in imagination and short on message. There is nevertheless, a poignant irony to the story that Democrats have had to resort to raising doubts about the integrity of their opponents by highlighting one of the worst cases of republican dereliction of duty and moral bankruptcy; after all, this common deficiency in democratic circles has seldom proven detrimental to their own party in years past.

The Taming of the C.R.E.W.

Melanie Sloan, who heads CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington), apparently does not own a TV set, or she would have noticed the three major news networks that are at the forefront of the left leaning advocacy coalition that virtually dominates the medium, making her “non-partisan” group’s existence somewhat redundant.

According to its background statement, the reason why CREW was ever launched is to provide a counterpart to the many “avowedly conservative” advocacy groups and address the need to bring “the message of injustice” to the people (meaning liberals).

As The Pendulum Swings

Call me an optimist, but I doubt the Democrats will be able to gain control of the House or the Senate in November.

Here’s why I am holding on to this bit of hope that seems to - by all accounts from the media - defy most expectations.

Suffer (not) the children

There’s a recurrent determinant behind the headline news that we have been subjected to in the last few days that bespeaks of a grave moral bankruptcy to which our world today is inextricably captive.