Kennedy’s Cup of Tea?

Thanks to Senator Bob Rucho for serving up a heaping holiday helping of hilarity: “JFK could have been the founder and leader of the Tea Party.”   Let’s let JFK answer himself. In the 1960 campaign, he said: “I have yet to hear of one single original piece of new, progressive legislation of benefit to…

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Other People’s Money

It wasn’t exactly subtle the other morning when the newspaper ran two stories side by side: One about a single mother who works all day and then works three additional jobs nights and weekends to make ends meet – and a second story about the Director of the Raleigh Housing Authority.   It turns out every year…

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Thankful for Thanksgiving

It’s the best holiday of all. It’s food, family, friends and football. It’s an all-too-brief pause before the mindless consumerism, stressed-out shopping and forced cheer of Christmas.   Only Americans could come up with Thanksgiving. Like July 4th, it’s all ours and All-American. July 4th is food, family, friends and the beach. But it’s for…

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Kennedy and Obama

As if I didn’t get enough JFK last week, I’m reading a new book about how Kennedy, in his last months, was growing into and getting better at the roles of President, politician and persuader-in-chief.   If only President Obama could summon some of that mojo now on Obamacare.   The book (“JFK’s Last Hundred…

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McCroryisms

There he goes again: “We didn’t shorten early voting, we compacted the calendar.” Now, that’s positively Orwellian. And it’s the latest in a long string of eye-catching – and embarrassing – statements by Governor McCrory.   Two weeks ago, John Frank wrote in the N&O: “At least a dozen times in his first 10 months…

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Behind the Curtain?

Farmers are saying they’ve tried and tried but there’s no way on earth they can hire enough workers to pick the apples and cucumbers and sweet potatoes germinating in the fields so Congress had better get in gear and pass immigration reform jack-rabbit-quick to legalize undocumented immigrants (which is the farmers’ polite way of saying…

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Humility

The train wreck hit so unexpectedly and with such force that, after standing his ground through the opening chaos, the President retreated which turned out to be like pouring gas on the fire – the partisan bickering soared. And Obama’s poll numbers tanked. And now listening to the wise men in Washington that was all…

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JFK

Those of us who remember November 22, 1963, must be a mystery to those of you who don’t. Why do we watch the same clips over and over? Why does it still affect us 50 years later?   To start with, it was our first shared televised grief. TV was still new in 1963. It…

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Polls

The other night Gary and I were invited to dinner with a dozen learned scholars who for some unfathomable reason were curious to hear us trace the roots of the demise of modern politics.   And, of course, it was only a matter of time before I said the word ‘poll’ and as soon as…

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The Great Divide

How often does some well-meaning soul say, “Democrats and Republicans should put aside their differences and just do what’s right for the country.”   That sounds perfectly reasonable. But it’s perfectly unrealistic. The differences are over what’s right for the country. And the differences are fundamental and unbridgeable.   How, for example, would the two…

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