Entries for October 2007

Crude oil was trading at about $25 per barrel the year that George W. Bush was inaugurated. Within a year, the price actually tumbled to around $17 per barrel. It has done little but climb, climb, climb ever since. The $100 barrel of oil is no longer unimaginable; it's coming, and soon. How much of that is the Bush administration's fault?

The mainstream media are focusing on former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's increasing popularity among Republican Iowa caucus-goers and his showing this past weekend at the annual Reagan Dinner in Iowa:

Three of the top-tier Republican presidential candidates—Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and John McCain—failed to show at the seventh annual Reagan Dinner in Iowa Saturday night, unwisely ceding the floor to the six remaining GOP hopefuls.

Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson took advantage of the absences....

Rising in the Iowa polls, Huckabee used his time on the stage to assure the crowd against one of his biggest criticisms by some in this electorate: that he couldn't beat Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the general election.

But the more we learn about Huckabee, the more apparent it becomes that Clinton must be salivating at the prospect of facing him in the general election. Why?

Do an online search for San Diego fires, and you'll see a left-punch/right-punch international game of fisticuffs consuming a large chunk of cyber real estate. It's taking place between environmentalists who blame the San Diego fires, in part, on climate change (for boosting the effect of the Southern California drought) and antienvironmentalists who never miss an opportunity to beg for weakened government regulation of logging in old-growth forests.

How many times has President Bush raised the specter (whether veiled or not) of military action? Let me count the times.

First, there was Afghanistan. We went in, succeeded, and pulled forces away too quickly. Now the Taliban is back in control of large parts of the country.

Then there was Iraq, a threat on which he delivered—which has become one of the United States' most disastrous military decisions in our nation's history.

Thomas Jefferson said, "Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom." But the Book of Revelation is apparently higher on the bestseller list for values voters.

Republican hopeful and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani wowed the faithful with his honesty at their Washington, D.C., Values Voters summit this past weekend.

While President Bush last week appointed yet another religious conservative to head the Department of Health and Human Services' family planning division, a school board in Maine approved birth control prescriptions for middle school students. The federal government marches ever further right while local government, in some instances, anyway, lurches left.

Sen. Hillary Clinton was campaigning in New Hampshire yesterday and her way-ahead-of-the-pack status (I won't use the word "front-runner") must be giving her the confidence to return to her roots and stump for the women's vote. Up until now, with her support for the Iraq war and tough talk on international issues, she has seemed more focused on convincing male voters she'd make a worthy commander in chief than convincing women voters she'd make a fine president.