Political Thought
In 2002, Mwai Kibaki was elected President of Kenya primarily on an anti-corruption platform. Once in office, he appointed as Kenya’s Permanent Secretary to the Office in Charge of Governance and Ethics (an anti-corruption czar) a man named John Githongo and specifically included his own government in Mr. Githongo’s purview. This week on The Interview,…
Perhaps a new Cuban declaration could assert the right of all people to life, liberty, and the pursuit of par (paragraphs rearranged): Golf had been played on the island since the 1920s. At the time of the 1959 revolution, Havana boasted two award-winning courses, at the Havana Country Club and the Biltmore, which hosted such…
Ken Shepherd of the media blog NewsBusters has an excellent post about the noticeable absence of a certain word in main stream media reports about Fidel Castro’s announcement that he is stepping down as ruler of Cuba. The level of excusing and tip-toeing around the truth about Castro is staggering. As of 2:13 ET when…
In the comments to my Sides Taking Shape post, RI Future’s Matt Jerzyk objects to my characterization of Bruce Lang and Ryan Curran as “regular Rhode Islanders.” According to Jerzyk, the former is a “longtime Statehouse activist” (founder, apparently, of Operation Clean Government) and the latter once ran for a General Assembly seat. I simply…
In a tangential comment to Marc’s post about population loss, “Chalkdust” issued the following multipart critique of Anchor Rising’s comment sections: “Of course, once NOW stayed on its knees for Bill Clinton” Another reason (along with “brown babies”) that Anchor Rising MIGHT be an interesting place to debate issues, if one can manage to close…
Lee Drutman has an excellent idea for an additional (or substitutive) practice for evaluating presidential candidates: How about, just for once, instead of a short-answer debate, we let our candidates take a long-essay test where we get to see the quality of their actual decision-making? The format could work like this: The candidates show up,…
Lee Drutman’s musing against the scourge of lobbyists is telling in the solution that he fails to consider: The challenge then is two-fold. One is to figure out ways to make public service more of a career in itself and less of the stepping-stone it is increasingly becoming. This may mean such things as better…
A relevant thought for the day from Claremont’s Richard Reeb: Entitlements ought to be understood only as goods or honors that we have earned, not something we think that we, or someone else, ought to have. That necessarily and unavoidably entails taking from one person or group and giving to another. The impolite word for…
Over at Spinning Clio (two mentions in a week!), I’ve posted about the Post-Modernism of Russell Kirk. I know, I know…but if your interest is pique, please take look.
In number 71 of The Federalist, Publius (Alexander Hamilton) makes an important point about the relationship between popular opinion and the executive. He argues that there is a difference between “the deliberate sense of the community” and “transient impulses.” There are some who would be inclined to regard the servile pliancy of the Executive to…
