Entries for June 2008

With no sitting president or vice president on the November ballot since 1952, this will be an extraordinary year in the run for the White House.

It underscores the importance of the three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate in September and October. Since many voters, surprisingly enough, don't focus on the election until Labor Day, it makes these encounters more important than ever.

The campaigns of Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama should agree soon on holding these debates without any prolonged discussion. In the past, there have been debates over the debates, often for silly reasons.

The Supreme Court's ruling on permitting handguns in the home will surely touch off an avalanche of lawsuits by gun lovers attacking any other restrictions on weapons.

That is the sad consequence of the court's narrow 5-to-4 decision overturning the District of Columbia's ban on handguns.

Don't kid yourself. The zealots of the National Rifle Association and their allies will now take aim at licensing laws, waiting periods on the purchases of guns, and any other impediments on the books in cities or states. Those celebrating the court's ruling left little doubt that this was only the first round in what promises to be a long battle in the courts—state and federal.

Perhaps it is time for James Dobson of Focus on the Family to run for public office—even the presidency.

Perched at his base in Colorado Springs, Colo., Dobson has been a consistent voice of intolerance in the evangelical-right crowd.

Dobson cannot abide either Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. John McCain. It is difficult to tell what he is for since he usually is shouting against someone.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina declared on Sunday that Sen. Barack Obama would "say anything, do anything" to win in November. However, Graham, the cochair of Sen. John McCain's national campaign, said his man would always put his nation first.

This remarkable and hypocritical accusation was made because Obama had flip-flopped on his vow to accept public money in the fall campaign. It wasn't Obama's finest hour, but Graham was over the top with that zinger.

Sen. Barack Obama did not do his integrity any favor by going back on his pledge to use public financing this fall in the final months of the campaign. It will cost him, at least in the short run.

Instead of the $85 million in taxpayer money, Obama will most likely raise at least three times that amount in the home stretch of this election cycle marathon of words and dollars.

President Bush has completed what was probably the final trip to Europe of his two terms in office. It was hardly a victory lap.

The president was given cordial welcome in Italy and France, but the leaders in those countries are unpopular too. In Germany, the usual protesters did not even turn out because they consider him irrelevant.

In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Gordon Brown was warned not to be too chummy with our leader.

While most Republicans are likely to consider Rep. Ron Paul of Texas a mere pest, his devoted followers could be a problem for Sen. John McCain in November.

Paul, the GOP congressman with the squeaky voice but with a following of vocal supporters, will not go away. He's suspended his presidential campaign but his crusade goes on.

Paul got into the presidential race with no chance of winning. But his opposition to the war in Iraq, his isolationist foreign policy, and his leave-us-alone views on the domestic front won him faithful supporters during the debates earlier this year.